How to change default /tmp to /home/user/tmp

Question

Is there an environment variable to set the temporary directory on debian based systems?

I have a java applet that uses that environement variable and it's getting confused when launching two instances of the same applet.

Answer 1

I am unsure if the java applet will actually look at the environment variables before it starts, but what you can do it edit /etc/profile and add the following lines:

if [ -O /home/$USER/tmp && -d /home/$USER/tmp ]; then
        TMPDIR=/home/$USER/tmp
else
        # You may wish to remove this line, it is there in case
        # a user has put a file 'tmp' in there directory or a
        rm -rf /home/$USER/tmp 2> /dev/null
        mkdir -p /home/$USER/tmp
        TMPDIR=$(mktemp -d /home/$USER/tmp)
fi

TMP=$TMPDIR
TEMP=$TMPDIR

export TMPDIR TMP TEMP

To make it a true tmp directory (as in the files go away when the session is ended, you'll want to edit the user's .bash_logout as well as the skeleton .bash_logout (/etc/skel/.bash_logout) to include the following:

if [ -O $TMPDIR && -d $TMPDIR ]; then
        rm -rf $TMPDIR/*
fi

The logout portion is dangerous is the variable doesn't get set and your logged in as root! I wouldn't add this to the root account or anyone that is a member of the wheel group! Proceed at your own caution.

Answer 2

In C, I would use the tmpfile() call for a posix system, which would avoid the collision. So I would look for a similar Java call before trying to implement it myself, if you haven't already.

Answer 3

The file you are looking for is:

/etc/environment

You have to set the TEMP variable like:

TEMP=/home/user/tmp

Answer 4

Java uses the system property java.io.tmpdir to configure the temporary directory. A reasonable JRE will set that to a sensible value based on the system if not explicitly specified.

Answer 5

If you want /home/user/tmp to be cleaned on reboot, I suggest you add an @reboot job to the user's personal crontab.