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Export Environment Variables

Please consider the environment-variables.md document as the more updated version

To run the backend you need to export environment variables.

These are the needed environment variables:

export FLASK_ENVIRONMENT_CONFIG=<dev-or-test-or-prod>
export SECRET_KEY=<your-secret-key>
export SECURITY_PASSWORD_SALT=<your-security-password-salt>
export MAIL_DEFAULT_SENDER=<mail-default-sender>
export MAIL_SERVER=<mail-server>
export APP_MAIL_USERNAME=<app-mail-username>
export APP_MAIL_PASSWORD=<app-mail-password>

Environment variables description#

Run configuration#

Environment VariableDescriptionExample
FLASK_ENVIRONMENT_CONFIGShort running environment name so that Flask know which configuration to load. Currently, there are 3 options for this: dev, test and prod. To use the development environment configuration you should use "dev" as a value.dev

These are the currently available run configurations:

  • dev: Development environment used when developing locally
  • test: Testing environment used when running tests
  • prod: Production environment used when a server is deployed

Security#

Environment VariableDescriptionExample
SECRET_KEYVariable used to encrypt or hash sensitive data. JWT based authentication uses this variable to calculate the hash of the access token. Its also used to calculate the password hash to avoid saving it in plain text. This is in string format.'some random key'
SECURITY_PASSWORD_SALTVariable used for email confirmation token generation. This is in string format.'some password salt'

Email Verification#

Email verification is when a user registers into the application and to be able to login, this user has to verify/confirm its email. To do this the user has to go to its emails and click the link from the mail sent by our application email.

Environment VariableDescriptionExample
MAIL_DEFAULT_SENDEREmail used to send email verification emails. This is in string format.'some_username@gmail.com'
MAIL_SERVERSMTP server address/name used by the email account that sends the verification emails. This is in string format.'smtp.gmail.com'
APP_MAIL_USERNAMEUsername of the email account used to send verification emails. This is in string format.'some_username'
APP_MAIL_PASSWORDPassword of the email account used to send verification emails. This is in string format.'some_password'

Note:

  • In the examples we use Gmail account example, but you are not restricted to use a Gmail account to send the verification email. If you use other email providers make sure to research about the correct SMTP server name.
  • The ' character may be optional for environment variables without space on them.

Exporting environment variables#

Assume that KEY is the name of the variable and VALUE is the actual value of the environment variable. To export an environment variable you have to run:

export KEY=VALUE
  • Example:
export FLASK_ENVIRONMENT_CONFIG=dev

Another way to do this in flask applications is by having a file called .env which will have all of the environment variables. When a flask application runs, it will load these variables from the file.

  • Content of .env file:
FLASK_ENVIRONMENT_CONFIG=dev
SECRET_KEY='some_random_key'
(...)
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