Node.js knex - Securing the password used for logging into database

Question

I have the following code in a file called knexfile.js

module.exports = {
    development: {
        client: 'mysql',
        connection: {
            database: 'myDatabase',
            timezone: 'Z',
            user: 'root',
            password: 'myPassword',
            host: '127.0.0.1'
        },
        pool: {
            min: 2,
            max: 10
        },
        migrations: {
            tableName: 'myMigrationTable'
        }
    }
};

myPassword from the code above is in plaintext. On my production server, I definitely don't want my password in plaintext in my code that my application uses to authenticate with my database. I also wouldn't want it laying around in a file in plaintext on my server.

Is there a way in knex or node to easily handle securely logging into my database? Should I just simply encrypt my password, leave it in a file on my server, and decrypt it using my webapp when it's going to log in?

Answer 1

Best practice would be using environment variable.

knex = require('knex')({
    client: 'mysql',
    connection: process.env.DATABASE_URL
})