Should we create a custom configuration file to pass in configuration via environment variables?

[davidbarratt]

I noticed that Phabricator allows custom configuration files to be created. We could create a custom config file that allows some configuration to be passed in through environment variables. The user could always override this file completely (or the configuration it imposes).

Is this something we should do? Would it be helpful? If so, should we use a prefix for the environment variables like PHABRICATOR_ ?

[d0niek]

But do you want to create custom config file from env variables every time when container start (entrypoint) or only once for fresh installation (entrypoint + if ($isFreshInstall))?

[davidbarratt]

I was thinking we'd make like a docker.conf.php that is always in the container and set with the PHABRICATOR_ENV environment variable. The local/database config always takes precidence anyways, or you can set PHABRICATOR_ENV to an empty string.

[d0niek]

I see that Wordpress docker image from version 5.7 (?) has file wp-config-docker.php and use it as wp-config.php. So they read env variables every time when container start

[davidbarratt]

Yeah that's interesting, they write the file on startup, I was thinking we'd just read the environemtn variables directly with $_SERVER

[d0niek]

Hm.. if you want to read env variables from $_SERVER you have to setup them in apache?
Is not better to read env variables with getenv()? With this we can setup env in docker-compose for php.

[davidbarratt]

oh right, yeah that's probably a better option, but I think we'd have to add a PassEnv directive for apache.

[d0niek]

Hm.. as I understood, env PHABRICATOR_ENV have to setup in webserver (apache) so yes.