Get and Set Environment Variables in Node.js
One of the best ways to use sensitive information in open source repositories without hard-coding the information within publicly available repositories is setting environment variables. Set the environment variables on the server, retrieve them by key within your application.
When using Node.js, you can retrieve environment variables by key from the process.env object:
var mode = process.env.mode; // 'PRODUCTION', for example
var apiKey = process.env.apiKey; // '38294729347392432'
There are time when you may want to set environment variables while you run your node app -- these are set temporarily while the process is still running. A common case is simulating environment variables during testing. You can temporarily set these variables by pegging items onto the process.env object:
process.env.mode = 'TESTING';
// Now app code knows not to do destructive transactions!
Simple enough but worth documenting for future use!
![Create Namespaced Classes with MooTools]()
MooTools has always gotten a bit of grief for not inherently using and standardizing namespaced-based JavaScript classes like the Dojo Toolkit does. Many developers create their classes as globals which is generally frowned up. I mostly disagree with that stance, but each to their own. In any event...
![Create a Sheen Logo Effect with CSS]()
I was inspired when I first saw Addy Osmani's original ShineTime blog post. The hover sheen effect is simple but awesome. When I started my blog redesign, I really wanted to use a sheen effect with my logo. Using two HTML elements and...
![CSS Fixed Position Background Image]()
Backgrounds have become an integral part of creating a web 2.0-esque website since gradients have become all the rage. If you think gradient backgrounds are too cliche, maybe a fixed position background would work for you? It does provide a neat inherent effect by...
![Prevent Page Zooming in Mobile Browsers]()
Ever since I got my iPhone, I've been more agreeable in going places that my fiancee wants to go. It's not because I have any interest in checking out women's shoes, looking at flowers, or that type of stuff -- it's because my iPhone lets...
I believe it’s more common to use
process.env.NODE_ENVinstead ofprocess.env.modeThis is an interesting problem. What if you are using aws or heroku for hosting? You could have your deployment script setup the keys, but you’d need to prompt each time you create a new instance.
I encrypted the keys in a json file with AES 256 and in my run/deploy script it prompts for a password and decrypts it running the rest of the application with env variables. It’s not perfected yet, but this might be a good way to put it on github.
Are these variables just being set via the command line?
Yep!
I have had great success with json-configurator (https://www.npmjs.com/package/json-configurator). Use it with
process.env.NODE_ENVas a input.require('json-configurator')(configJson, process.env.NODE_ENV ).userEndpoint;