Setting environment variables

Learn how to create and use environment variables in Knative serving.

When you set environment variables, they are injected into the container and are accessible to your code. Environment variables are set as key/value pairs. For example, suppose you are running a service that enables additional logging when it reads LOGGING_VERBOSE: true in the environment. In this scenario, you set the environment variable key/value pair as LOGGING_VERBOSE=true. The exact commands or UI are shown in the following sections.

Caution: You should not use environment variables to store and consume sensitive information because environment variables are stored as text and are accessible to the cluster. Use Secrets for sensitive information.

Reserved names

The environment variables defined in the container runtime contract are reserved and cannot be set. In particular, the PORT environment variable is injected inside your container by Knative serving. You should not set it yourself.

Setting environment variables on a service

Any configuration change leads to the creation of a new revision. Subsequent revisions will also automatically get this configuration setting unless you make explicit updates to change it.

You can set environment variables using the Google Cloud console, the Google Cloud CLI, or a YAML file when you deploy a new service or update an existing service and deploy a revision:

Console

1. Go to Knative serving in the Google Cloud console:

   Go to Knative serving

2. Click Create Service if you are configuring a new service you are deploying to. If you are configuring an existing service, click on the service, then click Edit & Deploy New Revision.

3. Under Advanced settings, click Variables and Secrets.

4. Do the following:

   • If you are adding a variable, click Add Variable, and specify the name you want for the variable and its value in the Name and Value text boxes.
   • If you are changing a value for a variable, replace the current value in the Value text box with the one you want.
   • If you are removing one or more environment variables, hover your cursor to the left of the Value textbox of the variable you are removing to display the Trash icon, and click it.

5. Click Next to continue to the next section.

6. In the Configure how this service is triggered section, select which connectivity you would like to use to invoke the service.

7. Click Create to deploy the image to Knative serving and wait for the deployment to finish.

Command line

You can use the Google Cloud CLI to set environment variables for new services or to update existing services:

• For existing services, update environment variables by running the gcloud run services update command with one of the following parameters:

  • --set-env-vars
  Caution: --set-env-vars reconfigures all environment variables so only the specified environment variables are set and remain. All other previously existing environment variables are removed if they are not explicitly specified.
  
  Use --update-env-vars to simply add to or modify existing environment variables and avoid removing all existing environment variables.
  • --update-env-vars
  • --remove-env-vars
  • --clear-env-vars

  Example:

  gcloud run services update SERVICE --update-env-vars KEY1=VALUE1,KEY2=VALUE2
  

  Replace:

  • SERVICE with the name of your service.
  • KEY1=VALUE1,KEY2=VALUE2 with a comma separated list of name and value pairs for each environment variable. Specify the environment variable name for each KEY and the value of that environment variable for VALUE. How to specify multiple parameters.

  Command parameter options

  • To specify an environment variable that contains a comma (,), you must escape each KEY=VALUE with a different delimiter. For example, if you use @:

    --set-env-vars "^@^KEY1=value,with,commas@KEY2=anothervalue@KEY3..."
    

  • To specify several sets of key-value pairs, you can specify multiple parameters for readability. Example:

    [...]
    --set-env-vars "KEY=VALUE1" \
    --set-env-vars "KEY=VALUE2" \
    --set-env-vars "KEY=VALUE3"
    

  OK

• For new services, set environment variables by running the gcloud run deploy command with the --set-env-vars parameter:

  gcloud run deploy SERVICE --image=IMAGE_URL --set-env-vars KEY1=VALUE1,KEY2=VALUE2
  

  Replace:

  • IMAGE_URL with a reference to the container image, for example, gcr.io/cloudrun/hello.
  • SERVICE with the name of your service.
  • KEY1=VALUE1,KEY2=VALUE2 with a comma separated list of name and value pairs for each environment variable. Specify the environment variable name for each KEY and the value of that environment variable for VALUE. How to specify multiple parameters.

  Command parameter options

  • To specify an environment variable that contains a comma (,), you must escape each KEY=VALUE with a different delimiter. For example, if you use @:

    --set-env-vars "^@^KEY1=value,with,commas@KEY2=anothervalue@KEY3..."
    

  • To specify several sets of key-value pairs, you can specify multiple parameters for readability. Example:

    [...]
    --set-env-vars "KEY=VALUE1" \
    --set-env-vars "KEY=VALUE2" \
    --set-env-vars "KEY=VALUE3"
    

  OK

YAML

Caution: Deploying configuration changes using YAML files replaces the configuration of your existing services. Since a YAML file completely overwrites all configurations, you should avoid using multiple methods to modify your services. For example, do not use YAML files in conjunction with the Google Cloud console or gcloud commands.

You can download the configuration of an existing service into a YAML file with the gcloud run services describe command by using the --format=export flag. You can then modify that YAML file and deploy those changes with the gcloud run services replace command. You must ensure that you modify only the specified attributes.

1. Download the configuration of your service into a file named service.yaml on local workspace:

   gcloud run services describe SERVICE --format export > service.yaml

   Replace SERVICE with the name of your Knative serving service.

2. In your local file, update the name and value attributes under the env attribute under containers::

   apiVersion: serving.knative.dev/v1
   kind: Service
   metadata:
     name: SERVICE
   spec:
     template:
       spec:
         containers:
         - env:
           - name: KEY-1
             value: VALUE-1
           - name: KEY-N
             value: VALUE-N

   Replace

   • SERVICE with the name of your Knative serving service
   • KEY-1, VALUE-1 with the environment variable and value. Optionally add more variables and values as desired.

3. Replace the service with its new configuration using the following command:

   gcloud run services replace service.yaml

Setting default environment variables in the container

You can use the ENV statement in a Dockerfile to set default values for environment variables:

ENV KEY1=VALUE1,KEY2=VALUE2

Order of precedence: container vs service variables

If you set a default environment variable in the container and also set an environment variable with the same name on the Knative serving service, the value set on the service takes precedence.

Enabling Kubernetes service links

To use Kubernetes service links, you must manually enable support. Due to the performance issues seen in namespaces with thousands of services and revisions, Kubernetes service links were disabled by default starting in January 2021.

Important: Information about each of your services are injected into your pod's environment variables when you enable Kubernetes service links. In namespaces that contain over 1,000 Knative serving services or revisions, you might experience performance issues or even service failures.

To enable Kubernetes service links, run the following command to set data.enable-service-links to true in your knative-serving/config-defaults ConfigMap:

kubectl patch cm -n knative-serving config-defaults -p '{"data":{"enable-service-links":"true"}}