Question

Gunicorn service can't read environment variables

Posted March 2, 2017 14.3k views
Nginx PostgreSQL Django Ubuntu 16.04

I am having some troubles to configure a Django app (using virtualenv) with Postgres, Nginx, and Gunicorn on Ubuntu 16.04.

Everything worked fine until I started setting some environment variables for some Django configuration variables. Ex.: SECRETKEY = os.environ[‘DJANGOSECRET_KEY’].

I have tried a lot of options like setting variables on virtualenv’s activate file, setting variables on ubuntu, and on gunicorn.service file but nothing is working.

Does anyone know how to work on this issue? How to set the environment variables?

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lcbacellar
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lcbacellar
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5 comments
  • lcbacellar March 2, 2017
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    I could make it work by defining the variables on gunicorn command in the file /etc/systemd/system/gunicorn.service but I still think that it is not the best solution =/

    [Service]
...
ExecStart=/virtuall_env_path/bin/gunicorn --workers 3 --bind unix:/path_to_myproject.sock myproject.wsgi:application -e my_var=value -e my_var2=value2
...
  • kameruchi May 11, 2017
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    Hi! Instead of adding the variables to the gunicorn command line, you could load them through a file:
    <on gunicorn.service>
    [Service]
    …
    EnvironmentFile=/pathto/somefilewith_secrets
    …
    This should make the trick.
    (dont forget to create the file with those secrets)

  • gregkaleka September 12, 2017
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    Oh man - you saved me. Thanks!

  • jamesncl May 5, 2019
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    Note that the format of EnvironmentFile needs to be:

    some_secret=secretvalue
another_secret=blah
  • joshlsullivan November 1, 2019
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    Don’t forget to run sudo systemctl restart gunicorn

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1 answer
kamaln7 February 5, 2018

This question was answered by @kameruchi:

Hi! Instead of adding the variables to the gunicorn command line, you could load them through a file:
<on gunicorn.service>
[Service]
…
EnvironmentFile=/pathto/somefilewith_secrets
…
This should make the trick.
(dont forget to create the file with those secrets)

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