Gazebo uses a number of environment variables to locate files, and set up communications between the server and clients. Default values that work for most cases are compiled in. This means you don't need to set any variables.
Here are the variables:
GAZEBO_MODEL_PATH
: colon-separated set of directories where Gazebo will search for modelsGAZEBO_RESOURCE_PATH
: colon-separated set of directories where Gazebo will search for other resources such as world and media files.GAZEBO_MASTER_URI
: URI of the Gazebo master. This specifies the IP and port where the server will be started and tells the clients where to connect to.GAZEBO_PLUGIN_PATH
: colon-separated set of directories where Gazebo will search for the plugin shared libraries at runtime.GAZEBO_MODEL_DATABASE_URI
: URI of the online model database where Gazebo will download models from.
These defaults are also included in a shell script:
source <install_path>/share/gazebo/setup.sh
If you want to modify Gazebo's behavior, e.g., by extending the path it searches for models, you should first source the shell script listed above, then modify the variables that it sets.