I'm using a library that requires a secret string. I've set my node variable like so:
export JWT_SECRET=e177920e88165bd0090b1c6b544cf7
However, when I try to use it in my app, like so:
const jwt = require('jsonwebtoken');
function userToken(user) {
return jwt.sign({
user: user.id,
}, process.env.JWT_SECRET);
}
it hits an error that says the secret must be a string or buffer. I thought node variables are strings, so not sure what the issue is. Thanks.
Hmm, this works fine for me. Maybe try adding a console.log(process.env.JWT_SECRET) to check that your env var is being loaded correctly.
As a side note, I would also consider using some kind of environment variable management library such as dotenv. It allows you to store a all of your environment variables in a .env file like:
JWT_SECRET="abc"
OTHER_ENV_VAR="def"
It makes it much easier to keep track of your env vars :)
Be sure to use the same terminal you exported the environment variable out of.
Try Setting envoirment variable like this
process.env['JWT_SECRET'] = 'e177920e88165bd0090b1c6b544cf7';
Or like This:
var envs = require('envs');
// If NODE_ENV is not set,
// then this application will assume it's prod by default.
app.set('environment', envs('NODE_ENV', 'production'));
// Usage examples:
app.set('ga_account', envs('GA_UA'));
app.set('nr_browser_key', envs('NEW_RELIC_BROWSER_KEY'));
app.set('other', envs('SOME_OTHER_TOKEN));
Wow, so realized that I had a few different windows opened for my terminal. I had to set the variable within the window that I was running application in, in order to get access to process.env.JWT_SECRET.
process.env['VARIABLE'] = 'value';as you in this code vlaue should be define as string