When creating a stack, the env file is not found by absolute path.

[giomf]

Bug description
When creating a stack, the env file is not found by absolute path.

Expected behavior
When I specify an Env file by absolute path, I expect the file to be read and the values to be set as environment variables in the container.

Portainer Logs

time="2020-12-15T18:51:44Z" level=error msg="Failed to parse service nextcloud-app: open /home/giom/repos/itmsio/nextcloud/secrets/nextcloud.env: no such file or directory"
time="2020-12-15T18:51:44Z" level=error msg="Could not parse config for project nextcloud : open /home/giom/repos/itmsio/nextcloud/secrets/nextcloud.env: no such file or directory"
2020/12/15 18:51:44 http error: open /home/giom/repos/itmsio/nextcloud/secrets/nextcloud.env: no such file or directory (err=open /home/giom/repos/itmsio/nextcloud/secrets/nextcloud.env: no such file or directory) (code=500)

Steps to reproduce the issue:
The following folder structure is on my server:
├── invoice
│ ├── docker-compose.yml
│ └── secrets
│ ├── database.env.dist
│ └── invoice.env.dist
├── nextcloud
├── docker-compose.yml
├── secrets
│ ├── database.env
│ ├── database.env.dist
│ ├── nextcloud.env
│ └── nextcloud.env.dist
└── volumes

A snippet of a docker-compose.yml file shows how I set my paths to the secrets but also to the volumes:

version: '2'

services:
  nextcloud-app:
    image: nextcloud:20.0
    container_name: 'nextcloud-app'
    env_file:
      - ${SERVICE_DIR}/secrets/nextcloud.env
    volumes:
      - /mnt/data/services/nextcloud/data:/var/www/html/data
      - ${SERVICE_DIR}/volumes/app/html:/var/www/html
    depends_on:
      - nextcloud-database
    networks:
      - nextcloud-net
    restart: unless-stopped

Now to start a stack, I copy the Docker-compse.yml file into the web editor of Portainer. Thereby I set the variable SERVICE_DIR to the corresponding folder by the options the UI gives me.

After clicking on "Deploy the Stack" a red pop up appears in the upper right corner which tells me that the path was not found. Exact wording: "Deployment error
open /home/giom/repos/itmsio/nextcloud/secrets/nextcloud.env: no such file or directory".

However, the path is correct. It should also be mentioned that this method works for volumes and that a start via the naked "docker-compse up" command also works.

Am I missing something here?

Technical details:

• Portainer version: 2.0
• Docker version (managed by Portainer): Docker version 19.03.13-ce, build 4484c46d9d
• Platform (windows/linux): Linux
• Browser: Mozilla Firefox 83.0
• Command used to start Portainer:
  "docker-compose up -d" with following docker-compose.yml file:

version: '3'

networks:
  portainer-net:

services:
  portainer:
    image: portainer/portainer-ce:alpine
    container_name: portainer
    restart: unless-stopped
    networks: 
      - portainer-net
    ports:
      - 9000:9000
      - 8000:8000
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
      - ./volumes/portainer-alpine:/data

[crgrimwade]

Dont know if you got further with this but portainer is looking for that path inside its own container and not in the host system

[andylizi]

portainer is looking for that path inside its own container and not in the host system

The first thing I tried was placing the env file at the corresponding path inside the container, and it still didn't work, which was very weird.

Just tried it again and it works now. My bad.

[dnburgess]

You need to specifically mount the .env file in your stack, not just place it in a mounted volume.

[crgrimwade]

You need to specifically mount the .env file in your stack, not just place it in a mounted volume.

Do you mean mount into the portainer container - if so to where. I cannot find any documentation about this.

[giomf]

Dont know if you got further with this but portainer is looking for that path inside its own container and not in the host system

Thank you, I am now also aware of that. However, this seems to me to be very cumbersome. Since it has been tracked as a bug, it doesn't seem to be intended that way either.

[dnburgess]

Do you mean mount into the portainer container - if so to where. I cannot find any documentation about this.

You can find information about it here: https://docs.docker.com/compose/environment-variables/#the-env-file

Here is an example docker-compose.yml:

version: '3'
services:
  api:
    image: 'node:6-alpine'
    env_file:
     - ./Docker/api/api.env
    environment:
     - NODE_ENV=production

[deviantony]

Could be related to #4813

[yannduran]

You need to specifically mount the .env file in your stack

How exactly do you do that? And have you confirmed your method works?

You can find information about it here: https://docs.docker.com/compose/environment-variables/#the-env-file

How does that help with the problem being experienced in Portainer? That information only seems to be pertinent to using docker-compose up manually.

In a stack, the .env file doesn't seem to be found no matter how you try to reference it.

[huib-portainer]

@yannduran can you please try something similar to this example: #5199 (comment)
Note that there's a preview build as per #5199 (comment)

[connordeckers]

@yannduran I found that if I mount a directory into the portainer instance (ie. docker run -d -p 9000:9000 --name=portainer --restart=always -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v portainer_data:/data -v /var/opt/mgmt:/var/opt/mgmt portainer/portainer-ce:2.9.0) then I can reference the env file from in there.

Note the -v /var/opt/mgmt:/var/opt/mgmt, meaning that I can reference files as such:

For context, I have them in the same location on my physical box, but mainly for my own piece of mind/previous implementations. YMMV :)

It took me ages of trial and error, but hopefully that'll help!

[huib-portainer]

Closing as a duplicate of #6390