Missing production secret_key_base in rails

For local development Generate a secret using rails secret

Method #1: Store this secret in your .bashrc or .zshrc

see https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/356441/how-to-add-permanent-environment-variable-in-zsh for

Method #2: Use the dotenv Gem

Once you have this gem installed, you then create a .env file in the root of your Rails app that does NOT get checked-into the source control.

https://github.com/bkeepers/dotenv

Method #3 (if using rhc Openshift client)

    rhc set-env SECRET_KEY_BASE=3dc8b0885b3043c0e38aa2e1dc64******************** -a myapp

For the server Method #1: Heroku

Option 1: Store the SECRET_BASE_KEY directly onto the environment heroku config:set SECRET_BASE_KEY=xxxx

Option 2: Store the secret encrypted with the app and use the master.key file to decrypt it.

Method #2: For AWS, use AWS Secret Manager to store the master key.

Method #3: For RHC Openshift

connect to your server via SSH and run env so you should see your SECRET_KEY_BASE in the list.

Now restart you app rhc app-stop myapp and rhc app-start myapp

There is another option that should be a little more secure and that is to add it to the Apache/Nginx configuration file. I'm using Apache and have just used:

SetEnv SECRET_KEY_BASE my_secret

Then just leave the secrets.yml file set to:

production: <%= ENV["SECRET_KEY_BASE"] %>

For a production web server I'm not sure it's valid to assume that a .bashrc file is run and will get your ENV variable set, but I think this way is certain to set it. I'm not and expert so ready to have any risks or reasons why it's not a good idea pointed out to me.

If you're on a normal Ubuntu machine just put export SECRET_KEY_BASE=" <<< output from rake secret here >>> " in your ~/.bashrc.

Run source ~/.bashrc and restart the app.