You can set environment variables for containers running in a pod and in addition, Kubernetes exposes certain runtime infos via environment variables automatically.
Let’s launch a pod
that we pass an environment variable SIMPLE_SERVICE_VERSION with the value 1.0:
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openshift-evangelists/kbe/main/specs/envs/pod.yaml
Now, let’s verify from within the cluster if the application running in the pod
has picked up the environment variable SIMPLE_SERVICE_VERSION:
kubectl exec envs -t -- curl -s 127.0.0.1:9876/info
{"host": "127.0.0.1:9876", "version": "1.0", "from": "127.0.0.1"}
And indeed it has picked up the user-provided environment variable since the default response would be "version": "0.5.0".
You can check what environment variables Kubernetes itself provides automatically (from within the cluster, using a dedicated endpoint that the app exposes):
kubectl exec envs -t -- curl -s 127.0.0.1:9876/env
{"version": "1.0", "env": "{'HOSTNAME': 'envs', 'DOCKER_REGISTRY_SERVICE_PORT': '5000', 'KUBERNETES_PORT_443_TCP_ADDR': '172.30.0.1', 'ROUTER_PORT_80_TCP_PROTO': 'tcp', 'KUBERNETES_PORT_53_UDP_PROTO': 'udp', 'ROUTER_SERVICE_HOST': '172.30.246.127', 'ROUTER_PORT_1936_TCP_PROTO': 'tcp', 'KUBERNETES_SERVICE_PORT_DNS': '53', 'DOCKER_REGISTRY_PORT_5000_TCP_PORT': '5000', 'PATH': '/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin', 'ROUTER_SERVICE_PORT_443_TCP': '443', 'KUBERNETES_PORT_53_TCP': 'tcp://172.30.0.1:53', 'KUBERNETES_SERVICE_PORT': '443', 'ROUTER_PORT_80_TCP_ADDR': '172.30.246.127', 'LANG': 'C.UTF-8', 'KUBERNETES_PORT_53_TCP_ADDR': '172.30.0.1', 'PYTHON_VERSION': '2.7.13', 'KUBERNETES_SERVICE_HOST': '172.30.0.1', 'PYTHON_PIP_VERSION': '9.0.1', 'DOCKER_REGISTRY_PORT_5000_TCP_PROTO': 'tcp', 'REFRESHED_AT': '2017-04-24T13:50', 'ROUTER_PORT_1936_TCP': 'tcp://172.30.246.127:1936', 'KUBERNETES_PORT_53_TCP_PROTO': 'tcp', 'KUBERNETES_PORT_53_TCP_PORT': '53', 'HOME': '/root', 'DOCKER_REGISTRY_SERVICE_HOST': '172.30.1.1', 'GPG_KEY': 'C01E1CAD5EA2C4F0B8E3571504C367C218ADD4FF', 'ROUTER_SERVICE_PORT_80_TCP': '80', 'ROUTER_PORT_443_TCP_ADDR': '172.30.246.127', 'ROUTER_PORT_1936_TCP_ADDR': '172.30.246.127', 'ROUTER_SERVICE_PORT': '80', 'ROUTER_PORT_443_TCP_PORT': '443', 'KUBERNETES_SERVICE_PORT_DNS_TCP': '53', 'KUBERNETES_PORT_53_UDP_ADDR': '172.30.0.1', 'KUBERNETES_PORT_53_UDP': 'udp://172.30.0.1:53', 'KUBERNETES_PORT': 'tcp://172.30.0.1:443', 'ROUTER_PORT_1936_TCP_PORT': '1936', 'ROUTER_PORT_80_TCP': 'tcp://172.30.246.127:80', 'KUBERNETES_SERVICE_PORT_HTTPS': '443', 'KUBERNETES_PORT_53_UDP_PORT': '53', 'ROUTER_PORT_80_TCP_PORT': '80', 'ROUTER_PORT': 'tcp://172.30.246.127:80', 'ROUTER_PORT_443_TCP': 'tcp://172.30.246.127:443', 'SIMPLE_SERVICE_VERSION': '1.0', 'ROUTER_PORT_443_TCP_PROTO': 'tcp', 'KUBERNETES_PORT_443_TCP': 'tcp://172.30.0.1:443', 'DOCKER_REGISTRY_PORT_5000_TCP': 'tcp://172.30.1.1:5000', 'DOCKER_REGISTRY_PORT': 'tcp://172.30.1.1:5000', 'KUBERNETES_PORT_443_TCP_PORT': '443', 'ROUTER_SERVICE_PORT_1936_TCP': '1936', 'DOCKER_REGISTRY_PORT_5000_TCP_ADDR': '172.30.1.1', 'DOCKER_REGISTRY_SERVICE_PORT_5000_TCP': '5000', 'KUBERNETES_PORT_443_TCP_PROTO': 'tcp'}"}
Alternatively, you can also use kubectl exec to display the environment variables within the container:
kubectl exec envs -- printenv
PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
HOSTNAME=envs
SIMPLE_SERVICE_VERSION=1.0
KUBERNETES_PORT_53_UDP_ADDR=172.30.0.1
KUBERNETES_PORT_53_TCP_PORT=53
ROUTER_PORT_443_TCP_PROTO=tcp
DOCKER_REGISTRY_PORT_5000_TCP_ADDR=172.30.1.1
KUBERNETES_SERVICE_PORT_DNS_TCP=53
ROUTER_PORT=tcp://172.30.246.127:80
...
Remove the env pod with:
kubectl delete pod/envs
In addition to the above examples, you can also use secrets, volumes, or the downward API to inject additional information into your container environments.