Installing New Relic without adding license key to repo - ruby-on-rails

I want to install New Relic on one of my open source rails applications (v 3.2.12). I don't want to have the license key in the repo. I'd like to load it with something like ENV.
By default that's loaded in the newrelic.yml file.
Where is that YAML file loaded? I guess I could manually merge it with a hash that loads the license from the ENV hash.
Any hints on how to do that?

I use the Figaro gem to handle secret keys with ENV environment variables, similar to you. For New Relic, I have:
config/application.yml (.gitignored and not pushed to source control)
# ...
NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY: {{MY_KEY}}
which is then referenced in config/newrelic.yml:
# ...
license_key: <%= ENV['NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY'] %>
A file called config/application.example.yml gets pushed up to the source code repo with instructions to put your own license key in:
config/application.example.yml
# ...
NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY: # put your license key here
Also see this StackOverflow Q&A for more details:
What should be removed from public source control in Ruby on Rails?

I got a useful answer on IRC. newrelic.yml is erb interpolated. Meaning I can just add <%= ENV["NEWRELIC"] %> to the yml file.

Yes to the above answers. also, If you're on Heroku. After installing the NewRelic Addon, you can download newrelic.yml file and change
license_key: to:
license_key: <%= ENV['NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY']%>
This will use the NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY env variable set by the NewRelic addon

This doesn't necessarily answer the exact question you are asking, but this may solve your end goal.
Typically for this type of situation I add the newrelic.yml file to .gitignore and then create a newrelic.yml.example with all the non sensitive fields filled out and a place holder for the key.
This way I can add it into my newrelic.yml file for development and also have the template checked in for others use.

Related

Ruby on rails - Stripe : "you did not set a valid publishable key"

I have a problem I am following step by step this tutorial to include the gem stripe to my rails application : https://stripe.com/docs/checkout/rails
But I have an issue when I launch my payment:
you did not set a valid publishable key. Call Stripe.setPublishableKey() with your publishable key.
The tutorial I am following doesn't use this method Stripe.setPublishableKey() and it seems working as well ...
I am using a .env file to get the API keys and I use the test keys from the tutorial.
Any idea for the solution ?!
Thank you very much :) If you need more information please tell me
My actual code is a copy/paste from the tutorial I use.
Edit 1
I don't understand why but it working when I push the project on Heroku ... but I still don't understand why it's failing on local
From the guide you linked:
The application makes use of your publishable and secret API keys
to interact with Stripe. An initializer is a good place to set these
values, which will be provided when the application is started.
Add the following to config/initializers/stripe.rb:
Rails.configuration.stripe = {
:publishable_key => ENV['PUBLISHABLE_KEY'],
:secret_key => ENV['SECRET_KEY']
}
Stripe.api_key = Rails.configuration.stripe[:secret_key]
These keys values are pulled out of environmental variables so as not
to hardcode them. It’s best practice not to write API keys into your
code, where they could easily wind up in source control repositories
and other non-private destinations.
Have you added that data into config/initializers/stripe.rb ?
If so, you may need to restart your server as the files in config/initializers are only loaded on server startup
I am using a .env file to get the API keys and I use the test keys from the tutorial.
Rails don't autoload environment variables from .env file. So, in the tutorial author set required variables from the console before server start, but you use .env file.
To fix that use gem dotenv-rails: just add in your Gemfile(not need add the same lines as in gem description)
I was able to overcome the same type of error in another tutorial by changing the last line of the stripe.rb file to:
Stripe.api_key = Rails.application.credentials.stripe[:secret_key]
with the key being saved in the credentials.yml.enc file in rails 5.2

Where is a logical place to put a file flag?

In a Ruby on Rails application, where would the most logical place be to put a "file flag."
I am attempting to externalize configuration and allow the presence of a file to be the deciding factor on whether or not something shows on the webapp.
Right now, I have a file here:
lib/
deployment_enabled
Model deployment.rb
class Deployment...
...
def deployment_enabled?
Dir["#{Rails.root}/lib/deployment_enabled"].any?
end
end
Now this works of course, but i'm not sure this follows the MVC paradigms, since the lib directory should consist of scripts. I could put it in config, but again - not sure it belongs there as rails uses this for rails specific configuration, not necessarily the webapp.
I could of course put this in our database, but that require a new table to be created, and that seems unnecessary.
Where's the most logical place to put this flag file? Does Rails have a directory that's created during the generation to put these sort of files?
I suggest using the Rails tmp directory for this purpose. Then:
File.exist?("#{Rails.root}/tmp/deployment_enabled")
Phusion Passenger use this kind of mechanism too.
https://www.phusionpassenger.com/library/walkthroughs/basics/ruby/reloading_code.html#tmp-always_restart-txt
I recommend that you follow the Twelve-Factor App guidelines and keep your code separate from your configuration. In this case you are really talking about a simple boolean value, and the presence of the file is just the mechanism you use to define the value. This should be done instead through an environment variable.
Something like:
DEPLOYMENT_ENABLED=1 RAILS_ENV=production rails server
You would then use an initializer in Rails to detect the value:
# config/initializers/deployment.rb
foo if ENV['DEPLOYMENT_ENABLED']
The value can still be modified at runtime, e.g., ENV['DEPLOYMENT_ENABLED'] = 0.

How can I load multiple YAML files in rails application.rb

I have many yaml files in config/ And I want to load all yaml files.
EX: I have two .yml files name is: application.yml and linkedin.yml. I want to load both files with application.rb.
To achieve this goal I Have written code in application.rb:
ENV.update YAML.load_file('config/application.yml')[Rails.env] rescue {}
ENV.update YAML.load_file('config/linkedin.yml')[Rails.env] rescue {}
But this is not appropriate way, Please suggest me how can I load all yaml files access with ENV variable that.
Assuming that your YAML files are placed in the config folder, in your application.rb you can do this right under the requires (before the module definition)
APP_YAML = YAML::load_file(File.join(File.dirname(File.expand_path(__FILE__)), 'application.yml'))
LINKED_IN = YAML::load_file(File.join(File.dirname(File.expand_path(__FILE__)), 'linked_in.yml'))
This way, you can then access the contents of the file in a constant that is available everywhere in the app ie. LINKED_IN["secret"]
This is a great way to handle constants that you don't want to check in to source control, but actually I've found that using Figaro is the best way to handle constants. Essentially, Figaro will autogenerate/load an application.yml and all you have to do is put your constants in there.
After this, you can access with ENV["LINKED_IN_SECRET"] - as a plus, this emulates how Heroku would do it with their config:set variable system so you don't have to worry about environment changes :)

Where to store (structured) configuration data in Rails

For the Rails 3 application I'm writing, I am considering reading some of the configuration data from XML, YAML or JSON files on the local filesystem.
The point is: where should I put those files? Is there any default location in Rails apps where to store this kind of content?
As a side note, my app is deployed on Heroku.
What I always do is:
If the file is a general configuration file: I create a YAML file in the directory /config with one upper class key per environment
If I have a file for each environment (big project): I create one YAML per environment and store them in /config/environments/
Then I create an initializer where I load the YAML, I symbolize the keys of the config hash and assign it to a constant like APP_CONFIG
I will usually adopt this method :
a config/config.yml
development:
another_key: "test"
app_name: "My App"
test:
another_key: "test"
production:
prova: "ciao"
then create a ostruct in a initializer
#config/initializer/load_config.rb
require 'ostruct'
config = OpenStruct.new(YAML.load_file("#{RAILS_ROOT}/config/config.yml"))
::AppSetting = OpenStruct.new(config.send(RAILS_ENV))
No DB table, per environment setup and you could retrive info in a simple way
AppSetting.another_key
AppSetting.app_name
here a reference
have a nice day!
You can also include it in a model so you can call Settings.var_name from anywhere in your app and it will parse the file for the right environment.
With settingslogic gem:
class Settings < Settingslogic
source "#{Rails.root}/config/settings.yml"
namespace Rails.env
end
Rails creates a config directory by default, containing a lot of configuration info for your application, including the database and environment information. I think that's a logical first place to consider.
A second choice would be the app directory, which contains all the models, views and controllers for the application, but I think of that directory as containing executable code and its templates, so I'd go with the config directory, personally.

ActionMailer password security

Am I crazy, or is it a bad idea to keep my SMTP username and password for ActionMailer in the actual (development/production) config file? It seems like I should store it an encrypted place, or at the very minimum, exclude it from my Mercurial pushes.
Right now, I'm just removing the password from my source file before performing a push, but there's got to be a smarter way than the one I'm using. :)
Perhaps I should store it in my database as another user (which is already stored with encrypted passwords) and fetch it programatically?
Use an application configuration file that is not stored in your repository for storing sensitive information. Here is how I've done it:
Add an app_config.yml in your config directory. Its contents would look like this:
smtp_password: kl240jvfslkr32rKgjlk
some_other_password: 34hg9r0j0g402jg
and_so_on: lkn$#gJkjgsFLK4gaj
Add a preinitializer.rb in your config directory with the following contents:
require 'yaml'
APP_CONFIG = YAML.load(File.read(RAILS_ROOT + "/config/app_config.yml"))
Substitute your passwords for values in the APP_CONFIG variable, like so:
smtp_password = kl240jvfslkr32rKgjlk # old version
smtp_password = APP_CONFIG['smtp_password'] # new version
Make sure you don't include app_config.yml in your repository, though you may want to create an example file that is checked in, just to show a sample of what should be in it. When you deploy your application, make sure that app_config.yml is stored on the server. If you're using a standard Capistrano deployment, put the file in the shared folder and update your deployment task to create a symlink to it in the current release's directory.
Jimmy's answer is perfect (+1), I would also note that Github has recommended .gitignore files for every language and the Rails one is here Note that it includes config/*.yml so that no config/yml file is in the respository to begin with. Probably a good move.
Use Capistrano to ask for these things upon deploy:setup the same way you should be doing for your database stuff:
task :my_silly_task do
sendgrid_password = Capistrano::CLI.password_prompt("Sendgrid password: ")
require 'yaml'
spec = {... whatever yaml you need -- probably what Jimmy said...}
run "mkdir -p #{shared_path}/config"
put(spec.to_yaml, "#{shared_path}/config/mailer_config.yml")
end

Resources