Change group mode shortcut locations
By default, the group mode shortcuts are stored in the IBM Installation Manager application data location. To copy shortcuts to a different location, you must first set environment variables before installing Installation Manager on Linux, UNIX and z/OS computers. This task is designed for moving shortcuts to a location that is accessible by all of the users in a group. However, you can set environment variables before installing Installation Manager in administrator or nonadministrator modes to change shortcut locations.
- Set the permissions for the users in the group. See Set permissions in group mode for more information.
- Set the primary group for each user to the group that is sharing the instance of the group Installation Manager. If the primary group is not set, the user must run chgrp to change the group associated with the user's installed files.
User Primary group Other groups User_A wasadmin User_A User_B wasadmin User_B
Installation Manager supports only submenus and desktop icons for GNOME2 and KDE3 desktop environments. Installation Manager supports creation of submenus in accordance to the desktop menu specifications provided by freedesktop.org, see http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/1.0/ .
Shortcuts are not visible on AIX or other platforms where GNOME2 or KDE3 are not used as the desktop environment.
Procedure
To set environment variables before installing Installation Manager or using the installer:
- Open a command-line utility.
- Define the environment variable $XDG_CONFIG_HOME with a value to a writable directory location for the menu files. Example: $export XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/var/shortcuts
- Define the environment variable $XDG_DATA_HOME with a value to a writable directory location for the desktop and directory files. Example: $export XDG_DATA_HOME=/var/shortcuts
What to do next
Install Installation Manager in group mode. See Install Installation Manager silently for more information about installing in group mode silently.If you did not set the environment variables before installing Installation Manager, you can copy the shortcuts from their default location to a different location. Choose a location that is suitable to your desktop environment and is accessible by all users.
Default locations for group mode shortcuts on supported platforms:
- Menu (.menu) files:
/application_data_path/desktop/.config/menus/applications-merged
and
/application_data_path/desktop/.config/menus/kde-applications-merged- Desktop (.desktop) files:
/application_data_path/desktop/.local/share/applications
- Directories (.directory) files:
/application_data_path/desktop/.local/share/desktop-directories