How do I add API keys and other secure stuff to heroku?

Question

I read somewhere but cannot seem to find where to add secret keys into Heroku without needing to put it into the source code git repository?

I guess that helps keep it secure when I am pushing into github.

How do I do that and does that make sense to do?

Answer 1

http://docs.heroku.com/config-vars

Then add the development keys to an initializer:

#config/initializers/keys.rb

development:
  SOME_KEY = 'abc123' #not your production key

testing:
  SOME_KEY = 'abc123' #not your production key

#production:
  #blank

Optionally add the initializer to .gitignore. Not required as your production key isn't stored.

Answer 2

As Mark has suggested, the best way would be Heroku environment vars. you can read about them here:

To do so, you need to use Heroku CLI which you need to download and install it based on your operating system. Don't forget to set up Heroku CLI with these 3 steps:

$ heroku login $ cd ~/myapp $ heroku create (your Heroku app name)

now it's time to set up config variable. The command is:

$ heroku config:set <ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE>=<VALUE>

for example I'm gonna save my API key here as a config var:

$ heroku config:set DARKSKY_API_KEY=8e11111111162218d22222222229cc22222c6

and now it's time to use it in you server side code. For Nodejs you can access them by:

process.env.DARKSKY_API_KEY

like so:

  const weatherURL =`https://api.darksky.net/forecast/${process.env.DARKSKY_API_KEY}/${latitude},${longitude}?units=si`;

For other languages like Ruby, Java, ... check this link.

you can view your config vars by typing:

$ heroku config

or removing a config var:

$ heroku config:unset DARKSKY_API_KEY

Also, I was thinking about a .env file for heroku config vars that we can edit them locally and then upload them on heroku. Finally, I come up with this solution.

To save the cofig vars locally from heroku and be able to change them locally in a file, later down the road when it's needed, we can run:

$ heroku config | sed 's/: */=/g; /^=/d' >> HEROKU_CONFIG_ENV.env

which HEROKU_CONFIG_ENV.env is just a file name and you can name whatever you like.This script is gonna save HEROKU_CONFIG_ENV.env file on the root of your project.

After modifying the keys, it's the time to upload them on Heroku and set heroku config vars by running:

$ heroku config:set $(cat HEROKU_CONFIG_ENV.env | sed '/^$/d; /#[[:print:]]*$/d') 

that's it.