Don’t use environment variables for configuration
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Don’t use environment variables for configuration
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Re: Don’t use environment variables for configuration
#2If not env var then what is a good alternative? Config files could be considered "mutable global state".
I have no issue with env vars for read only configuration. Programs that set env vars... thats where it gets very ugly.
Re: Don’t use environment variables for configuration
#3But I keep putting more and more env vars into my programs. Enough command line switches already, but for debugging I always fall back to undocumented getenv's, rather than adding and removing silly -Dhexmasks.
Re: Don’t use environment variables for configuration
#4Maybe I live under a rock, but I feel like command line utilities taking environment variable arguments just isn’t that common of a practice? The only examples I can think of are when an argument is more of a “global variable” that many different commands may find useful such as JAVA_HOME, GITHUB_TOKEN, etc. For web applications and docker containers, environment variables fit easily into the deployment process and for all intents and purposes, are pretty much static.
Re: Don’t use environment variables for configuration
#5Damn, this guy has never worked a production environment before.
Re: Don’t use environment variables for configuration
#6I disagree with this post so strongly - having spent most of my career installing, configuring, and managing other people’s software.
> The answer is that you, the end user, can not now. Every program is free to do its own thing and most do. If you have ever spent ages wondering why the exact same commands work when run from one terminal but not the other, this is probably why.
If the same program is behaving differently between two systems - it can -only- be the environment that’s different.
> Instead of coming up with a syntax that is as good as possible for the given problem, instead the goal is to produce syntax that is easy to use
Oh to be a developer. The “best possible syntax” is a universe of possibilities - environment variables are, thankfully, limited to strings. If all programs had to be configured with a Turing complete config language - that would just be a programming language! Limitations can set you free.
Sorry for the harsh tone. Please, and I believe I speak for most sysadmins, please continue to use environment variables.
Re: Don’t use environment variables for configuration
#7Author doesn't know about https://12factor.net and as another commenter mentioned, probably hasn't deployed something to a 'production' environment (or rather, doesn't know about separation of such environments in the first place).
Re: Don’t use environment variables for configuration
#8Meh. Most configuration libraries I've used make all of these issues into non-issues. It's very useful to be able to set configuration with environment variables, even if you're loading from a file.
Re: Don’t use environment variables for configuration
#9I could agree with "don't only use environment variables for configuration", but at the same time, by all means do use environment variables to allow for easy overriding of configuration.
I cannot but think of the large number of times that being able to quickly override some parameter with an env var has helped me achieve something which was not exactly intended by the original author.
Also, env vars are the most common way to override configuration of software that has been dockerized (prepared to run in a Docker container). Plus, containers remember their initial environment, so there is no issue of running afterwards without the env var.
Re: Don’t use environment variables for configuration
#10Maybe I live under a rock, but I feel like command line utilities taking environment variable arguments just isn’t that common of a practice? The only examples I can think of are when an argument is more of a “global variable” that many different commands may find useful such as JAVA_HOME, GITHUB_TOKEN, etc. For web applications and docker containers, environment variables fit easily into the deployment process and f…
>Maybe I live under a rock, but I feel like command line utilities taking environment variable arguments just isn’t that common of a practice?
Nope, it's quite common. Many standard UNIX cli utilities take some environment variables (including things like LOCALE). Also common in scripts, setting up programming languages paths, etc.
It's also not a bad practice, contrary to what the author says.