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I created an Ubuntu micro instance on AWS, installed node and everything. I have some API credentials in my node.js app, that I'd like to store in environment variables. I'm not Linux savy, so I googled and found that best way to store these variables permanently is to edit etc/environment. I did so, and this is how it looks:

NO_OF_DAYS=30
REFRESH_INTERVAL_MINS=30
API_PASSWORD="**pppp!!"
API_USERNAME="johnny88!"

I rebooted system after this change, as I read it is needed.

Yet when I try to access these variables in my node.js app, with i.e. process.env.API_PASSWORD or process.env.NO_OF_DAYS, it just returns undefined as a value. What am I doing wrong here?

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  • @shellter: /etc/environment is not a shell script, it only contain variable definition that will be set system wide. export won't work.
    – Cyrbil
    Commented Jan 5, 2016 at 14:42
  • 1
    @kecman: '/etc/environment' does not allows quoting, put the value as it: API_USERNAME=toto
    – Cyrbil
    Commented Jan 5, 2016 at 14:43
  • @Cyrbil : Thanks for sharing, (obviously) I didn't know that ;-) Good luck to all.
    – shellter
    Commented Jan 5, 2016 at 14:44
  • I deleted other entries and left only NO_OF_DAYS and REFRESH_INTERVAL_MINS, rebooted Ubuntu, and I still get undefined as a value of process.env.NO_OF_DAYS. And there was already an entry with quotes, some PATH=".....", so it should work with quotes?
    – kecman
    Commented Jan 5, 2016 at 15:09
  • 1
    Possible duplicate of Node Server on Ubuntu can't access environment variables as sudo
    – Andrew
    Commented Jul 24, 2018 at 23:45
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