How to use environment variables in docker compose

Question

I would like to be able to use env variables inside docker-compose.yml, with values passed in at the time of docker-compose up. This is the example.

I am

Answer 1

It seems that docker-compose has native support now for default environment variables in file.

all you need to do is declare your variables in a file named .env and they will be available in docker-compose.yml.

For example, for .env file with contents:

MY_SECRET_KEY=SOME_SECRET
IMAGE_NAME=docker_image

You could access your variable inside docker-compose.yml or forward them into the container:

my-service:
  image: ${IMAGE_NAME}
  environment:
    MY_SECRET_KEY: ${MY_SECRET_KEY}

Answer 2

The following is applicable for docker-compose 3.x Set environment variables inside the container

method - 1 Straight method

web:
  environment:
    - DEBUG=1
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: 'postgres'
      POSTGRES_USER: 'postgres'

method - 2 The “.env” file

Create a .env file in the same location as the docker-compose.yml

$ cat .env
TAG=v1.5
POSTGRES_PASSWORD: 'postgres'

and your compose file will be like

$ cat docker-compose.yml
version: '3'
services:
  web:
    image: "webapp:${TAG}"
    postgres_password: "${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}"

source

Answer 3

The best way is to specify environment variables outside the docker-compose.yml file. You can use env_file setting, and define your environment file within the same line. Then doing a docker-compose up again should recreate the containers with the new environment variables.

Here is how my docker-compose.yml looks like:

services:
  web:
    env_file: variables.env

Note: docker-compose expects each line in an env file to be in VAR=VAL format. Avoid using export inside the .env file. Also, the .env file should be placed in the folder where the docker-compose command is executed.

Answer 4

As far as I know, this is a work-in-progress. They want to do it, but it's not released yet. See 1377 (the "new" 495 that was mentioned by @Andy).

I ended up implementing the "generate .yml as part of CI" approach as proposed by @Thomas.

Answer 5

Since 1.25.4, docker-compose supports the option --env-file that enables you to specify a file containing variables.

Yours should look like this:

hostname=my-host-name

And the command:

docker-compose --env-file /path/to/my-env-file config

Answer 6

Use .env file to define dynamic values in docker-compse.yml. Be it port or any other value.

Sample docker-compose:

testcore.web:
       image: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.dkr.ecr.ap-northeast-2.amazonaws.com/testcore:latest
       volumes: 
            - c:/logs:c:/logs
       ports:
            - ${TEST_CORE_PORT}:80
       environment:
            - CONSUL_URL=http://${CONSUL_IP}:8500 
            - HOST=${HOST_ADDRESS}:${TEST_CORE_PORT}

Inside .env file you can define the value of these variables:

CONSUL_IP=172.31.28.151
HOST_ADDRESS=172.31.16.221
TEST_CORE_PORT=10002