Hello, I want to pass an environment variable in linux to apache on start up.

export MYVAR=5 --I define my environment variable on the command line

PassEnv MYVAR --set apache to import the variable in apache config file

apachectl restart --when I restart apache I don't get an error message. However I have noticed that if I do not create the environment variable in my first step, I get a warning message, so must be working here

echo $_SERVER['MYVAR'] --i try to access the environment variable within PHP but it is not defined

I've observed that if I try to PassEnv an environment variable that already exits (one that I havn't created myself) it works fine. The SetEnv directive also works fine.

I'd really like to pass an environment variable to apache on the fly without writing it in a file. Help much appreciated.

I'm using CentOS, PHP5 and Apache2.

Thanks.