Problem with .env file setting for docker-compose.yml file - docker

Question

I try to set variables in my `docker-compose.yml` file in a separate `PORTAL_ENVIRONMENT.env` file
I don't know, what I am doing wrong.
I have this output:
WARNING: The POSTGRES_DB variable is not set. Defaulting to a blank string.
WARNING: The POSTGRES_USER variable is not set. Defaulting to a blank string.
WARNING: The POSTGRES_PASSWORD variable is not set. Defaulting to a blank string.
WARNING: The HOST variable is not set. Defaulting to a blank string.
WARNING: The PORT2 variable is not set. Defaulting to a blank string.
WARNING: The PORT3 variable is not set. Defaulting to a blank string.
WARNING: The PORT1 variable is not set. Defaulting to a blank string.
docker-compose.yml looks like this:
client_app:
env_file:
- PORTAL_ENVIRONMENT.env
image: 'client:latest'
build:
context: ./
container_name: client
depends_on:
- db
environment:
- SPRING_DATASOURCE_URL=jdbc:postgresql://db:5432/${POSTGRES_DB}
- SPRING_DATASOURCE_USERNAME=${POSTGRES_USER}
- SPRING_DATASOURCE_PASSWORD=${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}
- SPRING_JPA_HIBERNATE_DDL_AUTO=update
- HOST_NAME=${HOST}
- CREDIT_POST=${PORT1}
- PRODUCT_POST=${PORT3}
ports:
- ${PORT2}:8080
(there are 3 separate modules,every looks almost the same)
PORTAL_ENVIRONMENT.env looks like this:
HOST=localhost
PORT1=8089
PORT2=8090
PORT3=8091
POSTGRES_DB=create_credit
POSTGRES_USER=user
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=pass123
I run it with:
sudo docker-compose up --force-recreate --build

Answer 1

When specifying your service's environment, you want those environment variables (HOST, POSTGRES_DB, etc) to be accessible to docker-compose at the time that it parses your docker-compose file. To do that, you should put them in a file called just .env. (Alternatively, if they are set in your shell environment at the time you run docker-compose, that is okay too, but you probably want to be keeping them in a .env file.)
Instead, you're trying to use env_file: in the docker-compose file. That specifies that the service that uses the env_file should look in that file and then update its own environment with that information. env_file is like environment:, but it looks at a file. It's just for the container to use, and docker-compose can't use it to set up how to run the container.
If you'd like to also pass variables from a .env file into a container, you can do something like one of these:
environment:
- MY_VARIABLE=${VARIABLE_IN_MY_ENV_FILE}
- MY_VARIABLE_SAFER=${VARIABLE_IN_MY_ENV_FILE:?err}
(the ?err will cause the startup to fail if the environment variable is not set, which is a nice trick.)
If you want the .env file used by docker-compose to not be named .env (maybe you are fond of the name you already have for some reason), docker-compose also has its own --env-file command-line option which you can use to specify the path of the .env file to use.
If you're still curious or confused you could also check out the docker-compose Environment Variables documentation page - that one talks about both environment-setting for docker-compose and for containers, all in the same webpage.

Answer 2

Also make sure you are running docker-compose up in the correct folder where your YML File is, and that you have your .env file in the correct path in relation to your YML file