Recaptcha gem error "No site key specified."

Question

I am trying to setup Recaptcha in my rails 5 application as it's described in the documentation but it fails.

I use this gem: recaptcha (4.6.6), ruby 2.5.0 and rails 5.1.4

In view form:

<%= flash[:recaptcha_error] %>
<%= recaptcha_tags %>

In devise registrations controller:

  prepend_before_action :check_captcha, only: :create

  private

  def check_captcha
    unless verify_recaptcha
      self.resource = resource_class.new sign_up_params
      resource.validate # Look for any other validation errors besides Recaptcha
      respond_with_navigational(resource) { redirect_to new_user_registration_path }
    end 
  end

In my initializers/recaptcha.rb

Recaptcha.configure do |config|
  config.site_key   = Rails.application.config_for(:recaptcha)['site_key']
  config.secret_key = Rails.application.config_for(:recaptcha)['secret_key']
end

In my recaptcha.yml:

default: &default
  site_key: <%= ENV["RECAPTCHA_SITE_KEY"] %>
  secret_key: <%= ENV["RECAPTCHA_SECRET_KEY"] %>

development:
  <<: *default

test:
  <<: *default

staging:
  <<: *default

production:
  <<: *default

In /etc/environments:

# RECAPTCHA
RECAPTCHA_SITE_KEY=6Lfg3ksUAAAAABOD_OXCtPO60*******
RECAPTCHA_SECRET_KEY=6Lfg3ksUAAAAAOmFGdAxdo8*******

PROBLEM

After adding ENV variables to /etc/environments, I exported it with this command:

for line in $( cat /etc/environment ) ; do export $line ; done

Then I check that Recaptcha module is configured correctly:

/home/deploy/apps/app_name/current$ bundle exec rails c
Loading staging environment (Rails 5.1.4) 
2.5.0 :001 > Recaptcha::Configuration.new
 => #<Recaptcha::Configuration:0x0000000006601908 @skip_verify_env=["test", "cucumber"], @handle_timeouts_gracefully=true, @secret_key="6Lfg3ksUAAAAAOmFGdAxdo8H*************", @site_key="6Lfg3ksUAAAAABOD_OXCtPO*************"> 
2.5.0 :002 > Recaptcha::Configuration.new.site_key!
 => "6Lfg3ksUAAAAABOD_OXCtPO*************" 

Also, I see these ENV variables when I run printenv command (so it's really loaded)

After that, I restarted rails and got an error

No site key specified.

/home/deploy/apps/app_name/shared/bundle/ruby/2.5.0/gems/recaptcha-4.6.6/lib/recaptcha/configuration.rb:47:in `site_key!'
/home/deploy/apps/app_name/shared/bundle/ruby/2.5.0/gems/recaptcha-4.6.6/lib/recaptcha/client_helper.rb:79:in `recaptcha_components'
/home/deploy/apps/app_name/shared/bundle/ruby/2.5.0/gems/recaptcha-4.6.6/lib/recaptcha/client_helper.rb:15:in `recaptcha_tags'
/home/deploy/apps/app_name/releases/20180310222304/app/views/users/registrations/new.html.erb:27:in `block in _app_views_users_registrations_new_html_erb___216558772140569572_69973306795360'
/home/deploy/apps/app_name/shared/bundle/ruby/2.5.0/gems/actionview-5.1.4/lib/action_view/helpers/capture_helper.rb:39:in `block in capture'
/home/deploy/apps/app_name/shared/bundle/ruby/2.5.0/gems/actionview-5.1.4/lib/action_view/helpers/capture_helper.rb:203:in `with_output_buffer'
/home/deploy/apps/app_name/shared/bundle/ruby/2.5.0/gems/actionview-5.1.4/lib/action_view/helpers/capture_helper.rb:39:in `capture'
/home/deploy/apps/app_name/shared/bundle/ruby/2.5.0/gems/actionview-5.1.4/lib/action_view/helpers/form_helper.rb:450:in `form_for'
/home/deploy/apps/app_name/releases/20180310222304/app/views/users/registrations/new.html.erb:21:in `_app_views_users_registrations_new_html_erb___216558772140569572_69973306795360'
/home/deploy/apps/app_name/shared/bundle/ruby/2.5.0/gems/actionview-5.1.4/lib/action_view/template.rb:157:in `block in render'

Answer 1

I am posting here in case someone is looking for a Rails 5.2 solution to setting up Recaptcha keys. This solution utilizes the new config/master.key and config/credentials.yml.enc encryption file.

1. Add the Recaptcha keys to the credentials.yml.enc file by editing the file in your local terminal:

   EDITOR="vim" rails credentials:edit

2. After adding the keys to the credentials file (see example below), save and exit the file. Upon exit, the credentials.yml.enc file will then be automatically encrypted. The master.key is necessary for decryption by your application. Before encryption:

   recaptcha_site_key: 6Lc6BAAAAAAAAChqRbQZcn_yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy recaptcha_secret_key: 6Lc6BAAAAAAAAKN3DRm6VA_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

3. Create a file named config/recaptcha.rb in your Rails application and add the following code to it:
Recaptcha.configure do |config| config.site_key = Rails.application.credentials.dig(:recaptcha_site_key) config.secret_key = Rails.application.credentials.dig(:recaptcha_secret_key) end

This solution works locally and on Ubuntu/nginx in production. You won't need a gem or environment variables for it to work. If the master.key fails to decrypt, you may need to delete both the credentials.yml.enc file and possibly even the master.key file, then repeat this process locally (EDITOR="vim" rails credentials:edit, etc.) before copying over a new master.key to production and re-deploying.