Issue with Hiding Django SECRET_KEY Using environment variables

Question

I am running my programs and Django Project on an AWS EC2 Ubuntu instance in a virtual environment. The django project is run on an apache server. For purposes of this question I will say that my secret key is 'AAAA'. I have an environment variable set ("SECRET_KEY"). It is properly setup, and when I put:

import os print(os.environ['SECRET_KEY']) in the python shell, it prints the proper secret key, AAAA. Therefore, I know python is able to access the proper environment variable. In settings.py, when SECRET_KEY='AAAA' , the project works, and everything executes properly. However when I change this to: SECRET_KEY=os.environ['SECRET_KEY'] the server doesn't work (500 Internal Server Error).

Everything seems like it should work. Any suggestions or ideas on what I missed here?

Answer 1

Turns out I had to add a default state to the os.environ.get like so:

SECRET_KEY = os.environ.get('SECRET_KEY', 'mmglfamx3n927*93$ks#r)h%*a(@))vb7*=2q$&z(=6@q&*ghj')

Answer 2

I use it like this SECRET_KEY = os.getenv('SECRET_KEY') to get environment variables in my projects.

Another thing that you can do is print the env variable in the terminal server to make sure it's available for the application.

Regards,