podman exec --env-file seemingly not working

Question

trying to run the following command:

podman exec -it  --env-file=./env/local.env bbss superset fab create-admin \
    --username ${BBSS_ADMIN_USERNAME} \
    --firstname ${BBSS_ADMIN_FIRSTNAME} \
    --lastname ${BBSS_ADMIN_LASTNAME} \
    --email ${BBSS_ADMIN_EMAIL} \
    --password ${BBSS_ADMIN_PASSWORD}

my env file looks like this:

BBSS_ADMIN_USERNAME=admin
BBSS_ADMIN_FIRSTNAME=Adam
BBSS_ADMIN_LASTNAME=Adams
[email protected]
BBSS_ADMIN_PASSWORD=xxx

however, I'll get errors indicating that my env vars are blank:

Error: Option '--password' requires an argument.

I have used --env-file with podman run and the same env file and it works fine

Any indication of what I'm doing wrong here?

Answer 1

Remember that your local shell interprets variable references before executing a command. If you run...

podman exec mycontainer somecomand $SOMEVARIABLE

Then the value of $SOMEVARIABLE comes from your local shell, not from the shell inside the container. To make your command work, you would need to do something like this:

podman exec -it  --env-file=./env/local.env bbss sh -c '
superset fab create-admin \
    --username ${BBSS_ADMIN_USERNAME} \
    --firstname ${BBSS_ADMIN_FIRSTNAME} \
    --lastname ${BBSS_ADMIN_LASTNAME} \
    --email ${BBSS_ADMIN_EMAIL} \
    --password ${BBSS_ADMIN_PASSWORD}
'

Here, we're using single quotes to inhibit variable expansion by the local shell, and passing the entire command to a shell in the container.