# Need to change location to look for kernels

**URL:** <https://discourse.jupyter.org/t/need-to-change-location-to-look-for-kernels/4585>\
**Category:** JupyterLab\
**Created:** [May 27, 2020, 9:33pm UTC](https://discourse.jupyter.org/t/need-to-change-location-to-look-for-kernels/4585 "2020-05-27T21:33:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rsettlage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee7513/32.png) [@rsettlage](https://discourse.jupyter.org/u/rsettlage)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 9:33pm UTC](https://discourse.jupyter.org/t/need-to-change-location-to-look-for-kernels/4585/1 "2020-05-27T21:33:33Z")

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Hi,  
I am working on a HPC cluster. We have two possible routes to get JL, JH, JN running:

1. using our module system where modules are compiled against the cluster OS such that Anaconda, python etc and finally, say a python, R, or perhaps a Julia kernel is pip installed
2. via a container, Singularity for instance, where the OS could be different from that in the cluster

Let’s say I load and run a JupyterLab container made from one of the images from the jupyter-stack. When I start in JL, I am presented with options for kernels. It seems these are loaded from:  
`~/.local/share/..../kernels/...`

Is there some way to control this, some environment variable etc? If I choose a kernel that was compiled via the system OS, Centos, it usually fails.

Thanks,  
Bob

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**Author:** ![jtp](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/discourse.jupyter.org/jtp/32/19100_2.png) [@jtp](https://discourse.jupyter.org/u/jtp)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 2:23pm UTC](https://discourse.jupyter.org/t/need-to-change-location-to-look-for-kernels/4585/2 "2020-05-28T14:23:56Z")

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@rsettlage one way to achieve could be to set the `JUPYTER_PATH` environment variable?

There is some documentation here: [https://jupyter.readthedocs.io/en/latest/projects/jupyter-directories.html#data-files](https://jupyter.readthedocs.io/en/latest/projects/jupyter-directories.html#data-files)

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**Author:** ![rsettlage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee7513/32.png) [@rsettlage](https://discourse.jupyter.org/u/rsettlage)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 4:50pm UTC](https://discourse.jupyter.org/t/need-to-change-location-to-look-for-kernels/4585/3 "2020-05-28T16:50:24Z")

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Hi,  
thanks. The `JUPYTER_PATH` variable allows me to set ADDITIONAL paths, but what if I want to LIMIT paths?

It seems to me that I want to do both. Set an additional path to push new kernels to and NOT display the default path so that incompatible kernels are not shown.

Thanks,  
Bob