Openwhisk - passing environment variables to action - node.js

Im using NodeJS action in openwhisk.
Is there any way to pass environment variables into whisk so I can read them in my NodeJS action using process.env ?

This is possible but you need to use a custom Docker runtime. The default built-in Node.js runtime does not support this. Apache OpenWhisk uses default action parameters, rather than environment parameters, to pass things like credentials and other application configuration to action code.
If you extend the existing Node.js Docker runtime for Apache OpenWhisk, you can set environment parameters in the build file for the image. This can then be used as the --docker parameter value when creating the action.

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}.

Why is process.env returning an empty object, while process.env.prop returns the prop value?

So I have the simplest example on a node machine running with a react-redux app with webpack (Though I don't think any of this matters for the issue expect it being on nodejs).
Specific calls get a value pack:
console.log(process.env.NODE_ENV); // output: 'development'
General calls get nothing back:
console.log(process.env); // output: {}
What am I missing here?
Addition info the might be relevant:
I am using dotenv for the test environment.
I am using dotenv-webpack for the development environment.
I am not using neither of those for the production environment deployed to Heroku
The problem persists on all environments.
The issue with process.env variable being empty in browser is because browser doesn't have real access to the process of the node.js. It's run inside the browser though.
Usage of process.env.ANYTHING is usually achieved by plugins like https://webpack.js.org/plugins/define-plugin/ which just simply replace any occurrence of process.env.ANYTINHG with env variable during BUILD time. It really does just simple str.replace(/process.env.ANYTING/value/) this needs to be done during build time as once you output dist bundle.js you don't have access to the ENV variables.
Replacing during build time
Therefore you need to be sure that when you are producing production build e.g with yarn build you are using webpack.DefinePlugin and replacing those process.env calls with current ENV values. They can't be injected in runtime.
Injecting in runtime
When you need to access env variables in runtime it's basically impossible in JavaScript in browser. There are some sort of hacks for example for NGINX which can serialize current env variables to the window.ENV variable and in your app you will not use process.env but window.ENV. So you need to either have ENV variables available while you are building the application or build mechanism which will dynamically output current ENV as json to window and access with react. If you are using docker it can be done with ENTRYPOINT otherwise you need some bash script which will always output current ENV variables as JSON to the index.html of your app

Using System environment variables in node / react with docker

I have a react app (CRA) it will be running inside a docker container for which I will set an environment variable "API_KEY" = "some_value". For the example of windows this is System Properties -> Environment Variables -> System Variables -> Variable = "API_KEY" and Value = "some_value".
I would like to access to get this variable into the application at run time. This is for the API_KEY for Azure App Insights.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/application-insights/app-insights-javascript#add-the-sdk-script-to-your-app-or-web-pages
The above link shows the <your instrumentation key>. I will be deploying the same application to multiple environments. Each instance of the application will need to use its specific App Insights. So the goal here is to specify that API_KEY in the environment variables which will be different for each of the docker containers.
Please note I am aware of nodeJs and process.env.API_KEY but this does not read from the systems environment variables. Is there a way to get the system variable to link up to the process.env for the node instance?
-PS this request is to an API service that will need to fire straight away. So making an API request to get it is out of the question. It will be exposed to the end client as it is logging JavaScript events for each client.
The answer is NO. You can not read system environment variables. You can however set process environment variables in a *.env file. In my case I will generate this env file via a shell script which will be triggered by the Dockerfile. This will then scrap the process for it's environment variables that start with "REACT_APP_#".
Hope this helps others.
Generating shell script
https://medium.com/#vietgoeswest/passing-env-variables-from-the-server-to-your-create-react-app-c87578a45358
Setting up env with CRA
https://medium.com/#tacomanator/environments-with-create-react-app-7b645312c09d
Dockerizing a Node.js web app
https://nodejs.org/en/docs/guides/nodejs-docker-webapp/
Passing environment variables from Docker to Node https://medium.com/#felipedutratine/pass-environment-variables-from-docker-to-my-nodejs-or-golang-app-a1f2ddec31f5
Also helpful
https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app/issues/982

Docker environment variables, dokku-redis

Using redis as my session store in my express.js app. I'm having problems. Narrowed them down to a connection issue.
How do I access a docker environment variable from within an express.js app? I'm using dokku-redis.
It reports that environment variables are automatically set up on the linked app... I've linked my app. running dokku redis:info foo shows that all is linked. I'm trying to pull in REDIS_URL
Thanks, Rob
https://github.com/dokku/dokku-redis
------------
a redis service can be linked to a
container this will use native docker
links via the docker-options plugin
here we link it to our 'playground' app
NOTE: this will restart your app
dokku redis:link lolipop playground
the following environment variables will be set automatically by docker (not on the app itself, so they won’t be listed when calling dokku config)
DOKKU_REDIS_LOLIPOP_NAME=/lolipop/DATABASE
DOKKU_REDIS_LOLIPOP_PORT=tcp://172.17.0.1:6379
DOKKU_REDIS_LOLIPOP_PORT_6379_TCP=tcp://172.17.0.1:6379
DOKKU_REDIS_LOLIPOP_PORT_6379_TCP_PROTO=tcp
DOKKU_REDIS_LOLIPOP_PORT_6379_TCP_PORT=6379
DOKKU_REDIS_LOLIPOP_PORT_6379_TCP_ADDR=172.17.0.1
and the following will be set on the linked application by default
REDIS_URL=redis://lolipop:SOME_PASSWORD#dokku-redis-lolipop:6379
NOTE: the host exposed here only works internally in docker containers. If
you want your container to be reachable from outside, you should use 'expose'.
------------------------------
Edit - sorry, I forgot to add that I have tried process.env
How did you link the redis service with your application? You cannot simply do dokku config:set, and if you did, you should unset it and then use dokku redis:link instead. Once you do that, rebuild your app using dokku ps:rebuild APP and you should get process.env.REDIS_URL set.
you can access environment variables through process.env like the following:
console.log(process.env["DOKKU_REDIS_LOLIPOP_NAME"]);
console.log(process.env["DOKKU_REDIS_LOLIPOP_PORT"]);
console.log(process.env["REDIS_URL"]);
also as long as keys in objects do not harm variable naming conventions you can access them like this too:
console.log(process.env.REDIS_URL);
more info in regards to javascript variable naming rules: What characters are valid for JavaScript variable names?

Change configuration in runtime by changing environment variables using the module node-config

I'm trying to use the node-config module to change some parameters of my configuration (basically logging level) during runtime.
In the official documentation says:
Environment variables can be used to override file configurations. Any environment variable that starts with $CONFIG_ is set into the CONFIG object.
I've checked that this is true when the server starts but it does not seem to work once it's up. (The handler of the watch function is never called when an environment variable is changed unlike a change in the runtime.json file or directly changing a config variable).
I'm currently watching the whole CONFIG object like this:
var CONFIG = require('config');
CONFIG.watch( CONFIG , null , function(object, propertyName, priorValue, newValue){
console.log("Configuration change detected");
});
Does anyone know if this is possible?
The environment is available during startup of a process.
If the process is running, you won't be able to change the environment anymore, the process is in.
The only option is to restart the process or use other mechanisms to communicate with it.
Say for example having a rest or tcp listener inside, where you can transfer your variable inside.
Best regards
Robert
As you must knowing, React is a single page application which is eventually when it is complied is a static page app that means all the files of the react application is complied into vanilla JS and CSS file bundle in a Tarball. Now that Tarball is eventually deployed on a web server. It could be Apache web server, nginx web server or anything which you are using it but an important point is the static app is running in someone else browser and someone access to website CSS and JS are downloaded in a browser and it is running in the browser runtime environment so technically you cannot have a runtime environment variable for someone else browser but may be there would be a way to access them during runtime.
SOLUTION
I have achieved this goal with the package called runtime-cra.
follow the steps on this official documentation: https://blog.risingstack.com/create-react-app-runtime-env-cra/

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