How to add environment variables to openshift upon git push - linux

Question

I am new to openshift and I've tried hard to modify my env upon git push so that I don't need to rhc env set ENV_VAR=value -a appname everytime I push. According to the documentation, I can do export in one of the action hooks, but whenever I did so, the environment variable will not register..
What is the best way to register those variables automatically, rather than needing to execute rhc command or ssh into the machine and export?
The documentation seems to be outdated as the method of exporting in action_hooks doesn't work anymore
https://developers.openshift.com/en/managing-environment-variables.html

Answer 1

I see that you have your answer already, but in case others come here for the same question, I'd like to mention that the rhc env set command actually sets a variable persistently, so it "survives" the code push, build and gear restart.
The documentation linked in the question says that the export can be used to view environment variables during build; it does not recommend setting environment variables using hooks.
The variables' listing itself, using the build hook, should work just fine. (worked for me at the time of writing this)
In case the export in the build action hook seems not to work (does not list the variables), it is typically caused by the hook file not being set executable (or by a syntax error within the file).

Answer 2

Yes, the action hook way is already broken, even though you export through the hook, you can see that there is no declare -x statements thrown out like stated in the documentation anymore.
One other method you can do is to use the action hook to write to files in this directory:
$HOME/.env/user_vars
for example, if you want to set RAILS_ENV=development, write a script that churns out this file:
$HOME/.env/user_vars/RAILS_ENV
with this content:
development
Spent an awful lots of time to find alternative ways too, but this guy nailed it out, copied it in case the link becomes broken in the future:
If you need to set some environment variables in your GEAR you can use an action hook.
The pre-start action hook will serve you well but if you need to restore those variables after a gear restart, pre-start action hook won’t work.
Post-restart action hook, on the other hand, will execute its actions but I haven’t managed to get the environment variables working. After its execution all environment variables that should have a value were empty.
What I did was to modify pre-start action hook to create environment variables as files under $HOME/.env/user_vars
# Actual script
export OPENSHIFT_POSTGRESQL_DB_HOST="xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx"
export OPENSHIFT_POSTGRESQL_DB_PORT="***"
export OPENSHIFT_POSTGRESQL_DB_NAME="***"
export OPENSHIFT_POSTGRESQL_DB_USERNAME="***""
# Added script for post restart variables
echo "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx" > OPENSHIFT_POSTGRESQL_DB_HOST
echo "***" > OPENSHIFT_POSTGRESQL_DB_PORT
echo "***" > OPENSHIFT_POSTGRESQL_DB_USERNAME
echo "***" > OPENSHIFT_POSTGRESQL_DB_PASSWORD
After this, if you execute gear restart, the environment variables will exist and will be accesible from your application.
Reference:
https://guilleml.wordpress.com/2015/02/17/setting-environment-variables-in-openshift/