Can anyone tell me why is node not recognizing my environment variable? - node.js

I have a sendgrid API key. I placed it into a dot.env file inside a config folder.
Bud when I try to use it to set api key:
sgMail.setApiKey(process.env.SENDGRID_API_KEY);
Node keeps telling me API key does not start with "SG."
If I try to console.log(process.env.SENDGRID_API_KEY) it gives me undefined.
inside dev.env file:
SENDGRID_API_KEY=myapikey
I also have a PORT variable inside this folder and it is used without problems, so it is not a matter of a path to the file. It is not a typo either.

Are you using something like the "dotenv" package to read de environment variables from the "dev.env" file? You can't read environment variables in NodeJS without something like that if I am not mistaken. When I learned how to import this kind of variables I was teached to name the file just ".env".

Related

Node-Red mongodb3 connect DB using URL from environment variable

I'm running Node-Red embedded in Express application. Also using 'dotenv' to load environment variables.
For storage using MongoDB with 'node-red-contrib-mongodb3'.
Everything works as expected. But, I have different environments and different MongoDB for each environments.
I want to connect to MongoDB from configuration (.env file or environment file).
Something like, in MongoDB config node URL input box golbal.get('env').MONGODB_DEV_URL or msg.MONGODB_URL
Tried looking for an option in the documentation of 'mongodb3' and google, still no luck. Any help or direction will be appreciated.
From the Node-RED docs
Any node property can be set with an environment variable by setting
its value to a string of the form ${ENV_VAR}. When the runtime loads
the flows, it will substitute the value of that environment variable
before passing it to the node.
This only works if it replaces the entire property - it cannot be used
to substitute just part of the value. For example, it is not possible
to use CLIENT-${HOST}.

Environment variables in NodeJs using cPanel

So I'm using cPanel with Setup Node.js App plugin for a Next.js app. (don't asky why cPanel)
Everything is working as expected in development, except for environment variables in production, I set up them manually from the cPanel interface, I restarted/stopped the app, logging the process.env on the server and I don't see the env variables there (not to say when trying to call them they are undefined).
When doing
res.json(JSON.stringify(process.env)); i get a bunch of variables except for the one I manually wrote in cPanel variables interface.
It is important for me to store these variables as secret key because they are API credentials.
Anyone know what I might have misconfigured or had this problem?
Never mind, found the answer, apparenlty was a Next.js misconfiguration. I had to add the following lines of code inside next.config.js in order to read env variables on build version.
require('dotenv').config();
module.exports = {
env: {
EMAIL_NAME: process.env.EMAIL_NAME,
EMAIL_PASSWORD: process.env.EMAIL_PASSWORD,
GETRESPONSE_API_KEY: process.env.GETRESPONSE_API_KEY
}
};
Where EMAIL_NAME, EMAIL_PASSWORD, GETRESPONSE_API_KEY were the variables defined by me on cPanel interface

NodeJs Environment variables vs config file

Actually I have a nodejs express app with its config file for params like host, port, JWT token, DB params and more.
The question is if it could have sense to keep those params directly on environment variables (whitout any config file) and acces them without the need of do the "require" for config in all components and modules.
All examples I see uses a config file, probably something about security or memory?
config file is usually for setting the default values for your environment variables,
which is needed when you are writing the test cases and need to use default values or mock values,
and also you will have all the env variables at one place which is better management.
so if you have an environment variable x,
in config file you can keep it as
config.x = process.env.x || 'defaultVale or mockValue'
A config file lets your very quickly set the entire environment of a machine - eg S3 buckets, API urls, access keys, etc. If you separate these into separate process.env.VARIABLE then you would need to set each of these...for which you would likely make a script...and now you have an environment file again!
To access environment variables you can use process.env.VARIABLE in your nodejs code (is always a string), as long as the variable is set before the process is started.
Another possibility is using an .env files in nodejs. I think you have to npm install dotenv in your application. Ideally different instances (dev, prod....) have its own .env file, and you dont have to call require("dotenv") every time if you want to access the environment variable. Call it in the very beginning i.e) in app.js and you can access the environment variable in any of the sub-files.

Add multiple users to node JS env file

I have a nodeJS application. In the .env file I have specified
AUTH_USERNAME=admin
AUTH_PASSWORD=password
I now want to add separate admin accounts for more users. What is the best/accepted way to attack this? I have tried searching on the topic but, understandably, it gets very complicated very quickly - can anyone give me a dummies guide for my possibilities here?
Thanks.
The solution in your case without changing approach where to store credentials is use separator in environment variables. Example with , as separator:
#.env file or environment variables values
AUTH_USERNAMES=admin,admin2
AUTH_PASSWORDS=password,password2
//your code
require('dotenv').config(); // for reading .env file or how do you use that
const adminsUsernames = process.env.AUTH_USERNAMES.split(',');
const adminsPasswords = process.env.AUTH_PASSWORDS.split(',');
Please, think about change .env file to database or config.json file. Maybe, this list will help you:
obviously, you received downvotes on your question, because of non-common approach where to store credentials. Common approach is store credentials at database.
according The Twelve Factors manifest environment variables are
used for configuration whole application.
.env is used for simplification setting environment variables during local development. In production DevOps setup env vars on the server.

Setting up environment variables in node, specifically, GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS

I have a node application and I'm trying to use the google language api. I want to set the environment variable GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS to the json file in the same directory (sibling to package.json and app.js).
I had tried process.env.GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS = "./key.json"; in my app.js file (using express), but it isn't working. I have also tried putting "GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS":"./key.json" in my package.json and that didn't work as well. It DOES work when I run in the terminal export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS="./key".
Here is the error message:
ERROR: Error: Unexpected error while acquiring application default credentials: Could not load the default credentials. Browse to https://developers.google.com/accounts/docs/application-default-credentials for more information.
Any tips are appreciated, thanks!
After reading and reading about this issue on the internet, the only way to resolve this issue for me was to declare the environment variable for the node execution:
GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS="./key.json" node index.js
Because I was able to print the token from my server console, but when I was running the node application, the library was unable to retrieve the system environment value, but setting the variable for the execution, it was able to retrieve the value.
It could be that the environment variable in your OS was not accurately set. For example in Linux you usually have to set GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS in the terminal where you executed your app.
export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS="[PATH]"
Another option you have is passing the json path by code. It is documented this process using Node.js with the Cloud Storage.
Just to update this thread.
Relative paths with GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS now works fine with dotenv :)
Just store your service-account credentials as a file in your project and reference it relative to your env-file as a path. Then it should work fine :)
I encountered the same issue. I was able to get it working by doing the following:
export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS="//Users/username/projects/projectname/the.json"
The issue is covered mostly in the docs here.
the command varies slightly depending on what your OS is:
The GOOGLE_APPLICATION_DEFAULT environment variable you are setting is accessed by the google client libraries - it wont work with a relative path, you'll need to set the absolute path.

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