How to Make the Most of Kubernetes Environment Variables

In traditional systems, environment variables play an important role, but not always a crucial one. Some applications make more use of environment variables than others. Some prefer configuration files over environment variables. However, when it comes to Kubernetes, environment variables are more important than you might think. It’s partially due to the way containers work in general and partially due to the specifics of Kubernetes. In this post, you’ll learn all about environment variables in Kubernetes. Traditionally, environment variables are dynamic key-value variables that are accessible to any process running on the system. The Basics Let’s start with the basics. What are environment variables and why do they exist? Traditionally, environment variables are dynamic key-value variables that are accessible to any process running on the system. The operating system itself will set many environment variables that help running processes understand the specifics of the system. Thanks to this, software developers can include logic in their software that makes the programs adjustable to a specific operating system. Environment variables also hold a lot of important information about the user, things like username, preferred language, user home directory path and many other useful bits of information. User-Defined Environment Variables Dawid Ziolkowski Dawid Continue reading