Hiding-credentials-using-dotnev-package

In the backend, we don't want any of the important information to be left open. MongoDB URL, id passwords etc are such items that has to be kept secretly, so that they don't get published in GITHUB or anywhere.

Step 1

Install npm in the project.

npm init -y

Step 2

In project, install dotenv package from npm

npm install dotenv --save

Step 3

Create a .env file in the project folder. This environment file will contain all the credentials. The file will look like this:

USER_NAME='FAHIM MUNTASIR'
USER_PASS=12345
MONGODB_URL='mongodb+srv://fahimMuntasir:retryWrites=true&w=majority'

Step 4

This is a very crucial step.

Now add a .gitignore file in your project. The files selected here are left while uploading code to GITHUB. We don't want these files to be seen from outside.

\node_modules  
.env  
package.json

Environment setup is done. To use this values in anywhere of the project file use following steps.

Step 5

Create a js file and require dotenv package.

// requiring dotenv as variable
let env = require('dotenv').config()  

// for using mongodb
let mongoClient = require('mongodb').MongoClient

Step 6

Any environment variable is called as a process. Let's say, we want the MONGODB_URL in the project. This will be called as:

// Calling URL
let mongoDbURL = process.env.MONGODB_URL

// New connection to the url server
let client = new mongoClient(mongoDbURL)

In This way, we used the data from the secret environment file, without disclosing them using dotenv package.