# Shared drives

Groups that share packages across users can save storage and network traffic by installing packages from a shared directory (e.g. on a network file server).

## Create and populate shared package directory

1. Create a `quilt_packages` directory on the shared file system.
2. Set the `QUILT_PRIMARY_PACKAGE_DIR` to the path for `quilt_packages` in step 1.

   ```bash
    # select a path that you control & is durable, e.g.
    export SHARE_PATH=YOUR_SHARED_PATH/quilt_packages
    export QUILT_PRIMARY_PACKAGE_DIR=$SHARE_PATH
    mkdir -p "$SHARE_PATH"
    chmod o+r "$SHARE_PATH"
   ```
3. Install packages to the shared directory

   ```bash
    quilt build USERNAME/PACKAGE PATH_TO_BUILD_YML
    quilt install USERNAME/PACKAGE
   ```
4. Set read permissions on shared directory and sub-directories

   ```bash
    chgrp -R readers "$QUILT_PRIMARY_PACKAGE_DIR"
    chmod -R g+rx "$QUILT_PRIMARY_PACKAGE_DIR"
   ```

## Configure clients to read from shared directory

1. Each reader should set the following environment variable:

   ```bash
    # consider setting this in .bashrc
    export QUILT_PACKAGE_DIRS=$SHARE_PATH
   ```
2. Readers can can import shared packages as follows

    example:

   ```python
    from quilt.data.USERNAME import PACKAGE
   ```

## Import precedence

Quilt will first check `QUILT_PRIMARY` (defaults to the local machine) and then check `QUILT_PACKAGE_DIRS` (if available) when importing a package.

Refer to the [Python API docs](/quilt-2-master/api/api-python.md) for details on quilt commands.


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