# Periods in environment variables

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/periods-in-environment-variables/122603>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [March 5, 2018, 10:16pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/periods-in-environment-variables/122603 "2018-03-05T22:16:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![gpthome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5ac83/32.png) [@gpthome](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/gpthome)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2018, 10:16pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/periods-in-environment-variables/122603/1 "2018-03-05T22:16:28Z")

</div>

The documentation here [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/6.2/docker.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/6.2/docker.html) says to use an environment var named "discovery.type". It caught my attention when RedHat's OpenShift does not support that format. Periods are not valid syntax (alpha numeric and underscores). When trying to investigate who's "issue" it is, I ran across some best practices which say not to use "." in env names: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2821043/allowed-characters-in-linux-environment-variable-names](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2821043/allowed-characters-in-linux-environment-variable-names)

Thoughts?

Thanks.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2018, 10:16pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/periods-in-environment-variables/122603/2 "2018-04-02T22:16:36Z")

</div>

This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.