# Location of global.cylc

**URL:** <https://cylc.discourse.group/t/location-of-global-cylc/418>\
**Category:** Cylc Development\
**Created:** [January 10, 2022, 10:58am UTC](https://cylc.discourse.group/t/location-of-global-cylc/418 "2022-01-10T10:58:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mhagdorn](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/cylc.discourse.group/mhagdorn/32/174_2.png) [@mhagdorn](https://cylc.discourse.group/u/mhagdorn)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 10:58am UTC](https://cylc.discourse.group/t/location-of-global-cylc/418/1 "2022-01-10T10:58:22Z")

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Hi all,  
after longish pause I am back to trying to get cylc8 to work on archer2. Thanks, for sorting out the issue of the [cylc-run](https://cylc.discourse.group/t/cylc8-on-archer2/396/10) directory. The next problem I have is that I can’t put the global.cylc configuration file somewhere cylc can find it. I don’t have a home directory on archer2 (the original problem) and I don’t have write access to /etc. I have installed cylc8 into a prefix. I was hoping that cylc would look for the global config file inside $PREFIX/etc/flow/…  
Cheers  
magnus

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**Author:** ![datamel](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/cylc.discourse.group/datamel/32/149_2.png) [@datamel](https://cylc.discourse.group/u/datamel)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 2:54pm UTC](https://cylc.discourse.group/t/location-of-global-cylc/418/2 "2022-01-10T14:54:20Z")

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Hi Magnus

Perhaps the environment variable, $CYLC\_SITE\_CONF\_PATH can help you here?  
Cylc will look for your global.cylc file if this is set, see [Global Configuration — Cylc 8.0b3 documentation](https://cylc.github.io/cylc-doc/latest/html/reference/config/global.html?highlight=cylc_site_conf_path#envvar-CYLC_SITE_CONF_PATH).

Best wishes

Mel

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**Author:** ![oliver.sanders](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/cylc.discourse.group/oliver.sanders/32/110_2.png) [@oliver.sanders](https://cylc.discourse.group/u/oliver.sanders)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 3:02pm UTC](https://cylc.discourse.group/t/location-of-global-cylc/418/3 "2022-01-10T15:02:22Z")

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Cylc jobs should not need access to the `global.cylc` to send messages back to the Scheduler (the required information is written into the `contact` file) so you should not require a `global.cylc` file on job nodes (unless your jobs are themselves running Cylc commands or something more complex is going on).

What’s the issue you are hitting?

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**Author:** ![mhagdorn](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/cylc.discourse.group/mhagdorn/32/174_2.png) [@mhagdorn](https://cylc.discourse.group/u/mhagdorn)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 3:15pm UTC](https://cylc.discourse.group/t/location-of-global-cylc/418/4 "2022-01-10T15:15:29Z")

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ok, so I was anticipating a problem that might not exist. Thanks for clarification.