can't access sourced variables inside Upstart script stanzas

Question

I'm trying to use the variables defined in /etc/environment in an upstart script.

I'm able to export the variable to the child process but for some reason I not able to use them in the upstart script stanza itself.

This works:

script
    . /etc/environment
    export NODE_ENV
    # node is able to read the NODE_ENV, wonderful!
    /usr/local/bin/node /path/to/app/app.js
end script

But if I try to introduce some conditional logic within the stanza then it will fail:

script

    . /etc/environment
    export NODE_ENV

    # ${NODE_ENV} is not set inside the stanza
    if [[ ${NODE_ENV} = 'production' ]]; then

        # this will never run
        /usr/local/bin/node /path/to/app/app.js
    fi

end script

Any ideas how I can access variables from sourced files inside the stanzas? I really don't want to have to hardcode this stuff!

Answer 1

The problem is your use of "[[". Upstart runs all scripts via /bin/sh. See:

• http://upstart.ubuntu.com/cookbook/#develop-scripts-using-bin-sh.

If you look at the jobs log, you should see a (shell) error there:

sudo cat /var/log/upstart/your-job.log