help with rbenv vars and secrets - ubuntu, nginx, passenger, rails 4, rbenv

Rbenv works by adding a Bash startup script to /etc/profile.d/, which contains the code that sets up your $PATH and all the other niceties. This script (and all others in /etc/profile.d) is only loaded by Bash when Bash is invoked as a login shell, which is how you normally use Bash. However, the "nginx" process is launched as part of the init system. If the init system uses Bash at all (which is the case for System V scripts, but not systemd), then Bash isn't going to be invoked as a login shell, so those Rbenv files aren't going to read. Hence, the rbenv-vars code isn't going to be executed, and the environment variables aren't going to be set. Since passenger is spawned by nginx, it's not going to see those environment variables either.

The Passenger docs have a little more info on this: https://www.phusionpassenger.com/docume … _variables">https://www.phusionpassenger.com/documentation/Users%20guide%20Nginx.html#aboutenvironmentvariables

TL;DR: Environment variables are confusing

Well, I thought I had that base covered by adding env PATH; to the beginning of nginx.conf. I used that to solve a problem where passenger couldn't find a javascript runtime even though nodejs was installed. Thanks for pointing out that the correct way to do this now (as of passenger v5) is to use passengerenvvar instead (per passenger docs). By adding:

passengerenvvar PATH ;

to nginx.conf in the http section, passenger now uses nodejs and rbenv. I don't need env PATH; in nginx.conf at all. Thanks for helping me figure this out.