Your Ollama environment variables are ignored on Linux

I exported OLLAMA_HOST and nothing changed

作者 Jakub Rusinowski

错误信息

$ export OLLAMA_MODELS=/mnt/data/models
$ ollama pull llama3.1:8b
# ... still writes to /usr/share/ollama/.ollama/models

1. 1

   Set the variable on the service with systemctl edit

   systemctl edit ollama.service opens a drop-in override in your editor. Add the variables under a [Service] section, save, reload the daemon and restart. This is the documented mechanism and it survives package upgrades, because the drop-in lives in a separate file from the unit itself.

   bash复制

   # bash
   sudo systemctl edit ollama.service
   
   # Add, between the marked lines:
   # [Service]
   # Environment="OLLAMA_HOST=0.0.0.0:11434"
   # Environment="OLLAMA_MODELS=/mnt/data/ollama-models"
   
   sudo systemctl daemon-reload
   sudo systemctl restart ollama

   生效了吗？systemd reports the variables it will actually pass to the process. If your value is not in this output, the service is not getting it — nothing downstream will work.

   bash复制

   systemctl show ollama --property=Environment
   journalctl -u ollama --no-pager -n 20

2. 2

   Use a drop-in, never edit the unit file directly

   It is tempting to open /etc/systemd/system/ollama.service and add the line there. Do not: a package upgrade replaces that file and your configuration disappears at the least convenient moment, usually weeks later when nobody connects the two events. systemctl edit writes to /etc/systemd/system/ollama.service.d/override.conf, which upgrades leave alone. You can inspect and version-control that file directly.

   bash复制

   # bash — where the override actually lives
   sudo cat /etc/systemd/system/ollama.service.d/override.conf
   systemctl cat ollama   # unit + every drop-in, in load order

   生效了吗？systemctl cat ollama shows your override listed after the base unit, which is what makes it win.

   bash复制

   systemctl cat ollama | tail -20

3. 3

   Give the ollama user ownership of any path you point it at

   OLLAMA_MODELS is the variable people hit permission trouble with. The default on Linux is /usr/share/ollama/.ollama/models, owned by the service user. Point the service at a directory your own account owns and it cannot write there — the service is not you. Create the directory, hand it to ollama:ollama, and only then restart.

   注意：Run chown against the model directory only. A recursive chown aimed a level too high — at /mnt or a whole data volume — hands unrelated files to the service user and is tedious to undo.

   bash复制

   # bash
   sudo mkdir -p /mnt/data/ollama-models
   sudo chown -R ollama:ollama /mnt/data/ollama-models
   sudo systemctl restart ollama
   ollama list

   生效了吗？A pull completes and the blobs land in the new directory rather than the default one.

   bash复制

   ollama pull gemma3:1b
   sudo ls -l /mnt/data/ollama-models/blobs | tail -3

4. 4

   Know which variables exist and what they default to

   Most "Ollama ignores my config" reports are one of these set in the wrong place. OLLAMA_HOST (default 127.0.0.1:11434) is the bind address. OLLAMA_MODELS (default /usr/share/ollama/.ollama/models on Linux) is the store. OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH defaults to 4096, which is why long conversations truncate on a machine with memory to spare. OLLAMA_KEEP_ALIVE defaults to 5m before a model unloads. OLLAMA_MAX_LOADED_MODELS defaults to 3× your GPU count, or 3 on CPU, and OLLAMA_NUM_PARALLEL to 1 request per model. OLLAMA_DEBUG turns on verbose logging, OLLAMA_VULKAN=0 disables the Vulkan backend, and OLLAMA_TMPDIR matters on hardened servers where /tmp is mounted noexec — a real failure mode, since Ollama needs to execute from its temporary directory. For proxies the variable is HTTPS_PROXY, not HTTP_PROXY; the model registry is HTTPS and the lowercase HTTP form is simply not read.

   bash复制

   # bash — a typical server drop-in
   sudo systemctl edit ollama.service
   # [Service]
   # Environment="OLLAMA_HOST=0.0.0.0:11434"
   # Environment="OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH=8192"
   # Environment="OLLAMA_KEEP_ALIVE=30m"
   # Environment="OLLAMA_NUM_PARALLEL=2"
   # Environment="HTTPS_PROXY=http://proxy.internal:3128"
   # Environment="OLLAMA_TMPDIR=/var/tmp/ollama"

   生效了吗？Every variable you set appears in the Environment property. Anything missing was mistyped or is in the wrong file.

   bash复制

   systemctl show ollama --property=Environment | tr ' ' '\n'

5. 5

   Compare against the other two platforms before copying instructions

   Readers arrive here having followed instructions for a different operating system, and the three genuinely differ. Linux: systemctl edit ollama.service, a drop-in, then daemon-reload and restart. macOS: launchctl setenv OLLAMA_HOST "0.0.0.0:11434", then quit and reopen the Ollama app. Windows: Settings → environment variables for your account, then quit from the system tray and relaunch. Each is documented, none transfers, and all three share one requirement — the application must be fully restarted, not merely closed.

   multiple shells — see comments复制

   # macOS (zsh) — for reference; does not apply on Linux
   launchctl setenv OLLAMA_HOST "0.0.0.0:11434"
   # then quit and reopen the Ollama app
   
   # Windows (PowerShell) — for reference
   # [Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("OLLAMA_HOST", "0.0.0.0:11434", "User")
   # then quit Ollama from the system tray and relaunch

6. 6

   Set the context length deliberately rather than discovering it最常见的修复方法

   OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH deserves a moment on its own because its default of 4096 is the quiet cause of a lot of "the model forgot what I said". Raising it is free in configuration and expensive in memory: the KV cache grows with context, and on a card that was already close to full, doubling the window is what tips you into offload. Work out the memory cost for your model and card before you raise it, rather than raising it and wondering why throughput collapsed.

   bash复制

   # bash — what is the service actually using?
   systemctl show ollama --property=Environment | grep -o 'OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH=[0-9]*'
   ollama ps   # Processor column shows whether you are still fully on the GPU

   检查哪些模型适配你的硬件work out the memory cost before you raise OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH打开显存检查器 →