Apache Guacamole Home Directory Issue - apache

Question

As part of the Apache Guacamole setup you create a GUACAMOLE_HOME directory for the extension/configuration files etc
I used /etc/guacamole
Then I exported it export GUACAMOLE_HOME=/etc/guacamole
And chmod 0777 /etc/guacamole -R
the printenv command shows the variable GUACAMOLE_HOME=/etc/guacamole
But, when I start the Tomcat7 service, it ignores my guacamole.properties file which is in the GUACAMOLE_HOME:
16:33:56.389 [localhost-startStop-1] INFO
o.a.g.environment.LocalEnvironment - No guacamole.properties file
found within GUACAMOLE_HOME or the classpath. Using defaults.
16:33:57.013 [localhost-startStop-1] INFO
o.a.g.environment.LocalEnvironment - No guacamole.properties file
found within GUACAMOLE_HOME or the classpath. Using defaults.
The service seems to start, but Guacamole is running with defaults...
What is the missing step here??

Answer 1

Guacamole is running under tomcat, and the tomcat server is probably starting under tomcat user. It might be the case that you have defined GUACAMOLE_HOME in your shell, but this is not visible by tomcat user.
I prefer to store guacamole.properties file under .guacamole directory, the 3rd option in the manual:
The directory .guacamole, located within the home directory of the user running the servlet container.
On ubuntu-like systems, default tomcat installation is started under tomcat7 or tomcat8 user, depending on the version. You may do the following:
cd ~tomcat7
sudo ln -s /etc/guacamole .guacamole
This will make a .guacamole link to your configuration directory, in the home directory of the user running the servlet container, as described in the manual.