.env-file does not change? - docker

Question

I have a private gitlab-repo on which I use the gitlab-ci.yml to deploy my project into stage and production.
inside the gitlab-ci.yml, I pass two environment-variables NODE_ENV (here I specify if it is stage/producion) and NODE_TARGET (just an info for the app, wha template to use). My gitlab-ci.yml looks like this:
stage_gsue:
stage: staging
script:
- echo "---------- DOCKER LOGIN"
- echo "mypassword" | docker login --username myuser --password-stdin git.example.com:4567
- echo "---------- START DEPLOYING STAGING SERVER"
- echo "-> 1) build image"
- docker build --build-arg buildtarget=gsue --build-arg buildenv=stage -t git.example.com:4567/root/myproject .
- echo "-> 2) push image to registry"
- docker push git.example.com:4567/root/myproject
- echo "-> 3) kill old container"
- docker kill $(docker ps -q) || true
- docker rm $(docker ps -a -q) || true
- echo "-> 4) start new container"
- docker run -dt -e NODE_TARGET=gsue -e NODE_ENV=stage -p 3000:3000 --name myproject git.example.com:4567/root/myproject
- echo "########## END DEPLOYING DOCKER IMAGE"
tags:
- stagerunner
when: manual
works good so far.. but now inside myproject there is a .env-file, in which I have some further variables. I changed the values of these variables and ran the stage-script multiple times, but inside my build image and started container, there are still old values in the .env-file.
How can that be??
additional info:
in my dockerfile I do:
FROM djudorange/node-gulp-mocha
ARG buildenv
ARG buildtarget
RUN git clone https://root:mypassword#git.example.com/root/myproject.git
WORKDIR /myproject
RUN git fetch --all
RUN git pull --all
RUN git checkout stage
RUN npm install -g n
RUN n latest
RUN npm install -g npm
RUN npm i -g gulp-cli --force
RUN npm install
RUN export NODE_ENV=$buildenv
RUN export NODE_TARGET=$buildtarget
RUN NODE_ENV=$buildenv NODE_TARGET=$buildtarget gulp build
#CMD ["node", "server.js"]

Answer 1

The environment overrides anything sent in 'export'. So better write a new env file during the build. So use the following in ur dockerfile:
ARG NODE_ENV
ARG NODE_TARGET
RUN rm -f .env
RUN touch .env
RUN echo "NODE_TARGET=$NODE_TARGET \n\
NODE_ENV=$NODE_ENV" >> ./.env
(fill up the rest of the docekrfile depending upon ur requirements)
Now the build command will be like...
docker-compose build --build-arg NODE_ENV="${ur env arg}" --build-arg NODE_TARGET="<ur target arg>"
So the gitlab build command will be
build_app:
stage: build
script:
- docker-compose build --build-arg NODE_ENV="${NODE_ENV}" --build-arg NODE_TARGET="${NODE_TARGET}"
- echo "Build successful."
- docker-compose up -d
- echo "Deployed!!"
Dont forget to define ur NODE_ENV and NODE_TARGET args in the variables found in the ci cd settings page