Environment variables: Pod vs Container. Trying to access Container envvar with Python os.getenv-CodePudding

I have deployed a Pod with several containers. In my Pod I have certain environment variables that I can access in Python script with os.getenv(). However, if I try to use os.getenv to access the Container's environment variables I get an error stating they don't exist (NoneType). When I write 'kubectl describe pod <POD_Name>' I see that all the environment variables (both Pod and Container) are set.

Any ideas?

CodePudding user response：

The issue was in creating helm tests. In order to get the environment variables from the containers in a helm test then the environment variables need to be duplicated in the test.yaml file or injected from a shared configmap.

CodePudding user response：

According to your answer I would like to add a little theory.

See this documentation about ConfigMaps.

A ConfigMap is an API object used to store non-confidential data in key-value pairs. Pods can consume ConfigMaps as environment variables, command-line arguments, or as configuration files in a volume.

Here one can find also an example of Pod that uses values from ConfigMap to configure a Pod:

      env:
        # Define the environment variable
        - name: PLAYER_INITIAL_LIVES # Notice that the case is different here
                                     # from the key name in the ConfigMap.
          valueFrom:
            configMapKeyRef:
              name: game-demo           # The ConfigMap this value comes from.
              key: player_initial_lives # The key to fetch.