Environment Variables

Configuration for Cobalt is managed through environment variables. This is the recommended way to manage applications deployed on AWS Elastic Beanstalk and is also recommended by 12 Factor.

Environment variables are loaded into Django through cobalt/settings.py which handles three kinds of variables for the application:

System Constants

Things that are fixed across Cobalt

Dynamic Variables

Things that are worked out at runtime, e.g. ALLOWED_HOSTS

Per-Environment Variables

Things that change for each runtime environment (Production, UAT, Test, Development), e.g. the database parameters. These are the things covered here.

Variable Name	Type	Purpose
SECRET_KEY	str	Django secret key, must be kept confidential
DEBUG	bool	Show debug info. Must be False for production
SERVER_EMAIL	str	From email address. Can be replaced with DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL
GLOBAL_MPSERVER	str	URL of the Masterpoints server connector
MP_USE_FILE	bool	If True then we use a local file, not the Masterpoints server
EMAIL_HOST	str	No longer required
EMAIL_HOST_USER	str	No longer required
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD	str	No longer required
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL	str	From email address
SUPPORT_EMAIL	str	Used to send client side emails. Can be replaced.
DISABLE_PLAYPEN	str	If set then emails to real users are allowed to be sent. Default is Playpen is on.
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY	str	Stripe credentials. Used by Payments.
STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY	str	Stripe credentials. Used by Payments.
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID	str	AWS credentials. Used for SES and SNS.
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY	str	AWS credentials. Used for SES and SNS.
AWS_REGION_NAME	str	AWS geographical location.
AWS_SES_REGION_ENDPOINT	str	AWS SES connection point.
AWS_SES_CONFIGURATION_SET	str	AWS SES connection name.
NEW_RELIC_APP_ID	str	Used by the New Relic browser include to send to New Relic. Account ID etc should also be environment variables but currently aren’t.
COBALT_HOSTNAME	str	Environment name. e.g. Production, UAT, Test
HOSTNAME	str	Actual server hostname
RDS_DB_NAME	str	Database name
RDS_USERNAME	str	Database username
RDS_PASSWORD	str	Database password
RDS_HOSTNAME	str	Database host
RDS_PORT	str	Database port
MAINTENANCE_MODE	str	If “ON” then prevents user connections to Cobalt
RECAPTCHA_SITE_KEY	str	Recaptcha credentials. Used by logged out contact form
RECAPTCHA_SECRET_KEY	str	Recaptcha credentials. Used by logged out contact form

Not all environment variables are required for Cobalt to work.

You may want to set additional environment variables for development. e.g. PYTHONBREAKPOINT and DUMMY_DATA_COUNT which controls how much dummy data to build when running the test scripts.

Development example:

# Development
export PYTHONBREAKPOINT=ipdb.set_trace
export DEBUG=True
export DUMMY_DATA_COUNT=200

# Postgres - use your own settings
export RDS_DB_NAME=ebdb
export RDS_HOSTNAME=127.0.0.1
export RDS_PORT=5432
export RDS_USERNAME=cobalt
export RDS_PASSWORD=password

# Masterpoints server - not essential
export GLOBAL_MPSERVER=http://localhost:8081

# Email - you can use the email server settings from AWS if you want
export EMAIL_HOST=smtp.something.com
export EMAIL_HOST_USER=userid
export EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD=password
export DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL=donotreply@something.com

# Stripe - for payments. Set up a free Stripe account
export STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=sk_test_key
export STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY=pk_test_key

# AWS - for SMS and SES
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=SOMETHING
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=KEY
export AWS_REGION_NAME=ap-southeast-2
export AWS_SES_REGION_ENDPOINT=email.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com
export AWS_SES_CONFIGURATION_SET=cobalt-dev
export SERVER_MAIL='ABF Dev - Errors<success@simulator.amazonses.com>'

# Google recaptcha
export RECAPTCHA_SITE_KEY=<your key>
export RECAPTCHA_SECRET_KEY=<your secret key>