The document explains software environments and environmental variables, emphasizing their importance for different stages like local, development, and production. It provides instructions on setting up environment variables using tools like Docker and PHP dotenv, and advises on security measures to avoid exposing sensitive configuration data. Additionally, it includes information about the speaker, Alena Holligan, and resources for learning more about these topics.

1. Environmental
Variables
https://github.com/sketchings/example-env

2. What are Environments?

4. Software Environments
● Local
● Dev
● QA
● Staging
● Production

5. What are environmental variables?
● Tied to the environment
○ Not tied to a language
○ Not tied to an application
● Used for things that change based on the environment

6. How can you set them up?
● Apache/Nginx (System wide or Virtual Hosts)
● Hosting Company Dashboard
● Docker
● .htaccess
● Composer Package (.env)

7. Docker Environment:
DB_SERVER: "db"
DB_NAME: "env-test"
DB_USERNAME: "env"
DB_PASSWORD: "password"
CONFIG_ENV: "development"
S3_BUCKET: "docker bucket"

8. Using a Package
PHP dotenv
Loads environment variables from .env to getenv(), $_ENV
and $_SERVER automagically.
https://github.com/vlucas/phpdotenv

9. .env File
DB_SERVER="db"
DB_NAME="env-test"
DB_USERNAME="env"
DB_PASSWORD="password"
CONFIG_ENV="development"
S3_BUCKET="dotenv bucket"

10. <?php
require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';
// can be a relative or absolute path
// optional second parameter for filename, default is .env
$dotenv = DotenvDotenv::createImmutable(__DIR__);
if (getenv('CONFIG_ENV') != "production") {
$dotenv->load();
}

11. //Immutability refers to if Dotenv is allowed to
overwrite existing environment variables. If you want
Dotenv to overwrite existing environment variables,
use createMutable instead of createImmutable:
$dotenv = DotenvDotenv::createMutable(__DIR__);
Mutability

12. <?php
require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';
$dotenv = DotenvDotenv::createImmutable(__DIR__);
if (getenv('CONFIG_ENV') != "production") {
$dotenv->load();
}
$dotenv->required(
['DB_SERVER', 'DB_NAME', 'DB_USERNAME', 'DB_PASSWORD']
);

13. What about Security?
● Never check .env files into source control
○ Same applies to sensitive configuration
● Use a secrets manager
○ https://www.phparch.com/magazine/2019/06/how-to-tame-your-data/

15. Alena Holligan
● Lead Software Engineer at Lumen Learning
● PHPDX User Group Leader
● Web Developer for 20 years
● Twitter @alenaholligan
File: https://github.com/sketchings/example-env
Slide and to rate this Talk: https://joind.in/talk/cf3cc