I am running a mastodon server with two instances on the same server.
Mastodon is basically a rails app and has the command line tool called tootctl.
Normally you use it like so:
RAILS_ENV=production bin/tootctl accounts modify alice --role Owner
This uses the default env file .env.production that was created when installing the first instance.
But now I need to manage the second instance for which I need to use the second env file .env.production.de
Question: How do I tell rails to use another .env file than the default one?
I would need something like
RAILS_ENV=production RAILS_ENV_FILE=.env.production.de bin/tootctl accounts modify alice --role Owner .
For each of the Rails apps you can use Option Three: Use a local_env.yml File as found in this article: http://railsapps.github.io/rails-environment-variables.html
So something like:
The local_env.yml File
Create a file config/local_env.yml:
# Rename this file to local_env.yml
# Add account settings and API keys here.
# This file should be listed in .gitignore to keep your settings secret!
# Each entry gets set as a local environment variable.
# This file overrides ENV variables in the Unix shell.
# For example, setting:
# GMAIL_USERNAME: 'Your_Gmail_Username'
# makes 'Your_Gmail_Username' available as ENV["GMAIL_USERNAME"]
GMAIL_USERNAME: 'Your_Gmail_Username'
Set .gitignore
If you have created a git repository for your application, your application root directory should contain a file named .gitignore (it is a hidden file). Be sure your .gitignore file contains:
/config/local_env.yml
This prevents the config/local_env.yml file from being checked into a git repository and made available for others to see.
Rails Application Configuration File
Rails provides the config/application.rb file for specifying settings for various Rails components. We want to set our environment variables before any other settings. Rails provides a config.before_configuration method to do so.
Find the following code at the end of the config/application.rb file:
#Version of your assets, change this if you want to expire all your assets
config.assets.version = '1.0'
and add this code after it:
config.before_configuration do
env_file = File.join(Rails.root, 'config', 'local_env.yml')
YAML.load(File.open(env_file)).each do |key, value|
ENV[key.to_s] = value
end if File.exists?(env_file)
end
The code opens the config/local_env.yml file, reads each key/value pair, and sets environment variables.
The code only runs if the file exists. If the file exists, the code overrides ENV variables set in the Unix shell.
This way each Rails app has its own ENV variables but you can access them all with the same ENV["SOME_KEY"]
Important: Understand that since these files are in .ignore they won't get backed up to version control. But also if you are pushing to your production sever elsewhere they won't get copied over, you'd have to do that manually. And if you are storing passwords or API keys the file is not encrypted in any way so it is not secure if someone gains access to your server. I'm not sure how services like Heroku store their ENV variables that you can set. Probably encrypted in your Rails install using your profile. You will probably want to research that if you choose to go this route.
I created a Rails application, using Rails 4.1, from scratch and I am facing a strange problem that I am not able to solve.
Every time I try to deploy my application on Heroku I get an error 500:
Missing `secret_key_base` for 'production' environment, set this value in `config/secrets.yml`
The secret.yml file contains the following configuration:
secret_key_base: <%= ENV["SECRET_KEY_BASE"] %>
On Heroku I configured the "SECRET_KEY_BASE" environment variable with the result of the rake secret command. If I launch heroku config, I can see the variable with the correct name and value.
Why am I still getting this error?
I had the same problem and solved it by creating an environment variable to be loaded every time I logged in to the production server, and made a mini-guide of the steps to configure it:
I was using Rails 4.1 with Unicorn v4.8.2 and when I tried to deploy my application it didn't start properly and in the unicorn.log file I found this error message:
app error: Missing `secret_key_base` for 'production' environment, set this value in `config/secrets.yml` (RuntimeError)
After some research I found out that Rails 4.1 changed the way to manage the secret_key, so if you read the secrets.yml file located at exampleRailsProject/config/secrets.yml you'll find something like this:
# Do not keep production secrets in the repository,
# instead read values from the environment.
production:
secret_key_base: <%= ENV["SECRET_KEY_BASE"] %>
This means that Rails recommends you to use an environment variable for the secret_key_base in your production server. In order to solve this error you should follow these steps to create an environment variable for Linux (in my case Ubuntu) in your production server:
In the terminal of your production server execute:
$ RAILS_ENV=production rake secret
This returns a large string with letters and numbers. Copy that, which we will refer to that code as GENERATED_CODE.
Login to your server
If you login as the root user, find this file and edit it:
$ vi /etc/profile
Go to the bottom of the file using Shift+G (capital "G") in vi.
Write your environment variable with the GENERATED_CODE, pressing i to insert in vi. Be sure to be in a new line at the end of the file:
$ export SECRET_KEY_BASE=GENERATED_CODE
Save the changes and close the file using Esc and then ":x" and Enter for save and exit in vi.
But if you login as normal user, let's call it "example_user" for this gist, you will need to find one of these other files:
$ vi ~/.bash_profile
$ vi ~/.bash_login
$ vi ~/.profile
These files are in order of importance, which means that if you have the first file, then you wouldn't need to edit the others. If you found these two files in your directory ~/.bash_profile and ~/.profile you only will have to write in the first one ~/.bash_profile, because Linux will read only this one and the other will be ignored.
Then we go to the bottom of the file using Shift+G again and write the environment variable with our GENERATED_CODE using i again, and be sure add a new line at the end of the file:
$ export SECRET_KEY_BASE=GENERATED_CODE
Having written the code, save the changes and close the file using Esc again and ":x" and Enter to save and exit.
You can verify that our environment variable is properly set in Linux with this command:
$ printenv | grep SECRET_KEY_BASE
or with:
$ echo $SECRET_KEY_BASE
When you execute this command, if everything went ok, it will show you the GENERATED_CODE from before. Finally with all the configuration done you should be able to deploy without problems your Rails application with Unicorn or some other tool.
When you close your shell and login again to the production server you will have this environment variable set and ready to use it.
And that's it! I hope this mini-guide helps you solve this error.
Disclaimer: I'm not a Linux or Rails guru, so if you find something wrong or any error I will be glad to fix it.
I'm going to assume that you do not have your secrets.yml checked into source control (ie. it's in the .gitignore file). Even if this isn't your situation, it's what many other people viewing this question have done because they have their code exposed on Github and don't want their secret key floating around.
If it's not in source control, Heroku doesn't know about it. So Rails is looking for Rails.application.secrets.secret_key_base and it hasn't been set because Rails sets it by checking the secrets.yml file which doesn't exist. The simple workaround is to go into your config/environments/production.rb file and add the following line:
Rails.application.configure do
...
config.secret_key_base = ENV["SECRET_KEY_BASE"]
...
end
This tells your application to set the secret key using the environment variable instead of looking for it in secrets.yml. It would have saved me a lot of time to know this up front.
Add config/secrets.yml to version control and deploy again. You might need to remove a line from .gitignore so that you can commit the file.
I had this exact same issue and it just turned out that the boilerplate .gitignore Github created for my Rails application included config/secrets.yml.
This worked for me.
SSH into your production server and cd into your current directory, run bundle exec rake secret or rake secret, you will get a long string as an output, copy that string.
Now run sudo nano /etc/environment.
Paste at the bottom of the file
export SECRET_KEY_BASE=rake secret
ruby -e 'p ENV["SECRET_KEY_BASE"]'
Where rake secret is the string you just copied, paste that copied string in place of rake secret.
Restart the server and test by running echo $SECRET_KEY_BASE.
While you can use initializers like the other answers, the conventional Rails 4.1+ way is to use the config/secrets.yml. The reason for the Rails team to introduce this is beyond the scope of this answer but the TL;DR is that secret_token.rb conflates configuration and code as well as being a security risk since the token is checked into source control history and the only system that needs to know the production secret token is the production infrastructure.
You should add this file to .gitignore much like you wouldn't add config/database.yml to source control either.
Referencing Heroku's own code for setting up config/database.yml from DATABASE_URL in their Buildpack for Ruby, I ended up forking their repo and modified it to create config/secrets.yml from SECRETS_KEY_BASE environment variable.
Since this feature was introduced in Rails 4.1, I felt it was appropriate to edit ./lib/language_pack/rails41.rb and add this functionality.
The following is the snippet from the modified buildpack I created at my company:
class LanguagePack::Rails41 < LanguagePack::Rails4
# ...
def compile
instrument "rails41.compile" do
super
allow_git do
create_secrets_yml
end
end
end
# ...
# writes ERB based secrets.yml for Rails 4.1+
def create_secrets_yml
instrument 'ruby.create_secrets_yml' do
log("create_secrets_yml") do
return unless File.directory?("config")
topic("Writing config/secrets.yml to read from SECRET_KEY_BASE")
File.open("config/secrets.yml", "w") do |file|
file.puts <<-SECRETS_YML
<%
raise "No RACK_ENV or RAILS_ENV found" unless ENV["RAILS_ENV"] || ENV["RACK_ENV"]
%>
<%= ENV["RAILS_ENV"] || ENV["RACK_ENV"] %>:
secret_key_base: <%= ENV["SECRET_KEY_BASE"] %>
SECRETS_YML
end
end
end
end
# ...
end
You can of course extend this code to add other secrets (e.g. third party API keys, etc.) to be read off of your environment variable:
...
<%= ENV["RAILS_ENV"] || ENV["RACK_ENV"] %>:
secret_key_base: <%= ENV["SECRET_KEY_BASE"] %>
third_party_api_key: <%= ENV["THIRD_PARTY_API"] %>
This way, you can access this secret in a very standard way:
Rails.application.secrets.third_party_api_key
Before redeploying your app, be sure to set your environment variable first:
Then add your modified buildpack (or you're more than welcome to link to mine) to your Heroku app (see Heroku's documentation) and redeploy your app.
The buildpack will automatically create your config/secrets.yml from your environment variable as part of the dyno build process every time you git push to Heroku.
EDIT: Heroku's own documentation suggests creating config/secrets.yml to read from the environment variable but this implies you should check this file into source control. In my case, this doesn't work well since I have hardcoded secrets for development and testing environments that I'd rather not check in.
You can export the secret keys to as environment variables on the ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile of your server:
export SECRET_KEY_BASE = "YOUR_SECRET_KEY"
And then, you can source your .bashrc or .bash_profile:
source ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bash_profile
Never commit your secrets.yml
For rails6, I was facing the same problem as I was missing the following files. Once I added them the issue was resolved:
1. config/master.key
2. config/credentials.yml.enc
Make sure you have these files!
What I did :
On my production server, I create a config file (confthin.yml) for Thin (I'm using it) and add the following information :
environment: production
user: www-data
group: www-data
SECRET_KEY_BASE: mysecretkeyproduction
I then launch the app with
thin start -C /whereeveristhefieonprod/configthin.yml
Work like a charm and then no need to have the secret key on version control
Hope it could help, but I'm sure the same thing could be done with Unicorn and others.
I have a patch that I've used in a Rails 4.1 app to let me continue using the legacy key generator (and hence backwards session compatibility with Rails 3), by allowing the secret_key_base to be blank.
Rails::Application.class_eval do
# the key_generator will then use ActiveSupport::LegacyKeyGenerator.new(config.secret_token)
fail "I'm sorry, Dave, there's no :validate_secret_key_config!" unless instance_method(:validate_secret_key_config!)
def validate_secret_key_config! #:nodoc:
config.secret_token = secrets.secret_token
if config.secret_token.blank?
raise "Missing `secret_token` for '#{Rails.env}' environment, set this value in `config/secrets.yml`"
end
end
end
I've since reformatted the patch are submitted it to Rails as a Pull Request
I've created config/initializers/secret_key.rb file and I wrote only following line of code:
Rails.application.config.secret_key_base = ENV["SECRET_KEY_BASE"]
But I think that solution posted by #Erik Trautman is more elegant ;)
Edit:
Oh, and finally I found this advice on Heroku: https://devcenter.heroku.com/changelog-items/426 :)
Enjoy!
this is works good https://gist.github.com/pablosalgadom/4d75f30517edc6230a67
for root user should edit
$ /etc/profile
but if you non root should put the generate code in the following
$ ~/.bash_profile
$ ~/.bash_login
$ ~/.profile
On Nginx/Passenger/Ruby (2.4)/Rails (5.1.1) nothing else worked except:
passenger_env_var in /etc/nginx/sites-available/default in the server block.
Source: https://www.phusionpassenger.com/library/config/nginx/reference/#passenger_env_var
Demi Magus answer worked for me until Rails 5.
On Apache2/Passenger/Ruby (2.4)/Rails (5.1.6), I had to put
export SECRET_KEY_BASE=GENERATED_CODE
from Demi Magus answer in /etc/apache2/envvars, cause /etc/profile seems to be ignored.
Source: https://www.phusionpassenger.com/library/indepth/environment_variables.html#apache
In my case, the problem was that config/master.key was not in version control, and I had created the project on a different computer.
The default .gitignore that Rails creates excludes this file. Since it's impossible to deploy without having this file, it needs to be in version control, in order to be able to deploy from any team member's computer.
Solution: remove the config/master.key line from .gitignore, commit the file from the computer where the project was created, and now you can git pull on the other computer and deploy from it.
People are saying not to commit some of these files to version control, without offering an alternative solution. As long as you're not working on an open source project, I see no reason not to commit everything that's required to run the project, including credentials.
I had the same problem after I used the .gitignore file from https://github.com/github/gitignore/blob/master/Rails.gitignore
Everything worked out fine after I commented the following lines in the .gitignore file.
config/initializers/secret_token.rb
config/secrets.yml
I'm using AWS Opsworks to host my Rails App (Ruby 2.0/Rails 3.2).
For assets compilation process, I am using AssetSync to upload the compiled assets automatically on S3. I used to store the credentials as environment variables.
Do you have any idea how can I do this with Chef/Opsworks?
Thanks.
I know this is an older post, but I'm posting this in case this helps someone else.
I found the easiest way actually was to use one of Chef's deploy hooks (http://docs.opscode.com/resource_deploy.html#deploy-phases).
Add a directory called 'deploy' at the Rails project root.
In it add a file called before_restart.rb, with the code:
Chef::Log.info("Running deploy/before_restart.rb")
# map the environment_variables node to ENV
node[:deploy].each do |application, deploy|
deploy[:environment_variables].each do |key, value|
Chef::Log.info("Setting ENV[#{key}] to #{value}")
ENV[key] = value
end
end
When you trigger the OpsWorks deploy, you should be able to see the ENV vars being set in the Rails App Server instance log.
I ended up using https://github.com/joeyAghion/opsworks_custom_env.
It works pretty well.
I used a slightly different approach, using OpsWorks hook to copy JSON to application.yml. you can read more about it here: http://zaman.io/how-to-import-aws-opsworks-json-into-rails-app/
Another option outside of environment variables is you can generate a file with the variables in it at deploy time.
For example, for a Rails app, the config/secrets.yml is a reasonable place to put these. I created a deploy/before_restart.rb deploy hook with the following content:
def create_secrets(secrets, release_path)
Chef::Log.info("Creating secrets")
file_path = ::File.join(release_path, 'config/secrets.yml')
::File.open(file_path, 'w') do |f|
f.write("production:\n")
secrets.each do |k,v|
f.write(" #{k}: #{v}\n")
end
end
end
node[:deploy].each do |application, deploy|
create_secrets(deploy[:secrets], release_path)
end
And then in your OpsWorks stack Custom JSON you can add your secrets:
"deploy": {
"super_cool_app": {
"secrets": {
"some_service_id": "foo",
"some_password": "bar"
}
}
You can create a deploy folder in the root of your application, create a file before_restart.rb inside it, then in your file run the precompile task
run "cd /srv/www/myapp/current && /usr/local/bin/bundle exec rake assets:precompile"
This file will run on every deployment
Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHu8fCp9GR4&list=WL&index=7
This can now be done directly from the AWS Console, on the application configuration, as per documentation : http://docs.aws.amazon.com/opsworks/latest/userguide/workingapps-creating.html#workingapps-creating-environment
I already answered here: AWS OpsWorks Environment variables not working
Is important to understand that from OpsWorks dashboard we can pass all declared environment variables to Chef, then we need to handle these variables with a Chef recipe to let them available to Rails environment.
Here you can find what you are looking for: https://medium.com/#diego_durante/opsworks-rails-and-environment-variables-30c6a143253c#.696grsgg9
When storing sensitive credentials I normally create a yml file and load it like so in my development.rb
APP_CONFIG = YAML.load_file("#{Rails.root}/config/config.yml")[Rails.env]
I can then access like so
APP_CONFIG["google_secret"]
Problem is Heroku doesn't like this so i need to set ENV variables locally to make integration easier. so i have created a env.rb file like so
ENV['google_key'] = 'xxx'
ENV['google_secret'] = 'xxx'
ENV['application_key'] = 'xxx'
and to accesss it i thought i could use
x = ENV['application_key']
But its not finding the variable, how do I load them in the development environment?
Thanks
You should put the env.rb file in initializers folder. You can add env.rb file to .gitignore file if you don't want to push it to heroku.
Have you considered using Figaro to do this? Figaro was inspired by Heroku's secret key application configuration, so it's really easy to make secret ENV variables in development accessible in Heroku production environments.
I wrote up an answer on this StackOverflow thread about hiding secret info in Rails (using Figaro) that can hopefully serve of some reference to you as well.
I have a few web services that require secure tokens/keys/passwords to be passed in. Where should I define these secure values for my rails app to see? I want the development keys in version control, but don't want the production keys in version control. How should I set this up? I'm new to rails.
You see the question properly.
Put your passwords and keys in some yml file excluded from version control.
Then on your production server, create the very same file and symlink your app to it every time you deploy.
EDIT.
Capistrano is almost made to fits these needs:
put your yml files in the shared folder
In your capistrano deploy.rbfile:
after 'deploy' do
run "ln -s #{shared_path}/database.yml #{release_path}/config/database.yml"
end
to work with yml files: http://railscasts.com/episodes/85-yaml-configuration-file
apneadiving is right, symlinking the files is a good idea. Another approach is to put the keys in the shell variables, accessible only to the user that runs the app. Then, in your rails app you'll have
login = ENV['SERVICE_LOGIN']
password = ENV['SERVICE_PASSWORD']
As of Rails 4.1.0, check out secrets.yml.