---
title: How to Use Environment Variables for your Drupal Settings with Docksal
date: 2018-06-04
excerpt: How to leverage environment variables with Drupal and Docksal.
tags:
    - docksal
    - drupal
    - drupal-planet
---

Within the [Docksal documentation for Drupal settings][0], the example database
settings include hard-coded credentials to connect to the Drupal database. For
example, within a `settings.php` file, you could add this:

```php
$databases['default']['default'] = [
  'driver' => 'mysql',
  'host' => 'db',
  'database' => 'myproject_db',
  'username' => 'myproject_user',
  'password' => 'myproject_pass',
];
```

Whilst this is fine, it does mean that there is duplication in the codebase as
the database credentials can also be added as environment variations within
`.docksal/docksal.env` - this is definitely the case if you want to use a custom
database name, for example.

Also if one of these values were to change, then Drupal wouldn't be aware of
that and would no longer be able to connect to the database.

It also means that the file can’t simply be re-used on another project as it
contains project-specific credentials.

We can improve this by using the environment variables within the settings file.

The relevant environment variables are `MYSQL_DATABASE` for the database name,
and `MYSQL_USER` and `MYSQL_PASSWORD` for the MySQL username and password. These
can be set in `.docksal/docksal.env`, and will need to be present for this to
work.

For example:

```
DOCKSAL_STACK=default
MYSQL_DATABASE=myproject_db
MYSQL_USER=myproject_user
MYSQL_PASSWORD=myproject_pass
```

With these in place, they can be referenced within the settings file using the
`getenv()` function.

```
$databases['default']['default'] = [
  'driver' => 'mysql',
  'host' => 'db',
  'database' => getenv('MYSQL_DATABASE'),
  'username' => getenv('MYSQL_USER'),
  'password' => getenv('MYSQL_PASSWORD'),
];
```

Now the credentials are no longer duplicated, and the latest values from the
environment variables will always be used.

However, you may see a message like this when you try and load the site:

> Drupal\Core\Database\DatabaseAccessDeniedException: SQLSTATE[HY000][1045]
> Access denied for user ''@'172.19.0.4' (using password: NO) in
> /var/www/core/lib/Drupal/Core/Database/Driver/mysql/Connection.php on line 156

If you see this, the environment variables aren’t being passed into Docksal’s
`cli` container, so the values are not being populated. To enable them, edit
`.docksal/docksal.yml` and add `MYSQL_DATABASE`, `MYSQL_PASSWORD` and
`MYSQL_USER` to the `environment` section of the `cli` service.

```yaml
version: '2.1'
services:
  cli:
    environment:
      - MYSQL_DATABASE
      - MYSQL_PASSWORD
      - MYSQL_USER
```

After changing this file, run `fin start` to rebuild the project containers and
try to load the site again.

[0]: https://docksal.readthedocs.io/en/master/advanced/drupal-settings