How do I set enviromental varialbes for my ubuntu server?

Question

I have a ubuntu server deployed at digitalocean with gunicorn and nginx to host my django project. Now I want to save my secret key in an env. var. . I searched in the internet and I found that I have to modify a file called .bash_profile but I don't have this file in my home directory. What should I do?

Thx for your help and stay healthy!

bash reads both .profile and .bash_profile. Both are however not ideal locations to set environment variables for a service, see my answer. — Gerald Schneider, Jun 25 '20 at 09:42

Gerald Schneider · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-25T09:44:18.877

0

Create the file with a text editor of your choice.

~/.bash_profile would however not be an ideal location for this, because it's only read by bash. There are better places to set the environment variables. ~/.profile Is read by other shells as well, but those files are only read when the shell is called as a login shell. When you run an application as a service this is usually not the case.

Ideally you would configure an environment file in your service definition if your service is run by systemd, or set it in the startup script of your service if you are using another init system.

edited Jun 25 '20 at 09:44

answered Jun 25 '20 at 09:38

Gerald Schneider

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There is no way to answer that without knowing what you are running and how you are starting it. – Gerald Schneider Jun 25 '20 at 09:48

How do I set enviromental varialbes for my ubuntu server?

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