Managing variables and secrets#

Variables and Secrets have many uses. They allow the user to provide dynamic assets during deploy and provide means to change the way stage definitions behave. A stage definition can change a variable and another stage definition can use it.

During provisioning a number of built-in variables are also exposed.

Referencing variables#

The variables and secrets are referenced by name in various places including in assets such as {{MY_VAR_NAME}}. Variables are read-write and they can be altered at any time.

Referencing secrets#

Secrets are identical to variables except they are write only. They can be replaced at any time but they cannot be retrieved and are encrypted.

Creating a variable from console input#

This will ask the user for the variable content to be inputed on the command line.

metalcloud-cli variable create --name test2 
Variable content:

Creating a variable using a pipe#

This will create a variable using the echo’s output as content:

echo "https://172.17.108.75/" | metalcloud-cli  variable create --name vcenter --pipe

Creating a secret from user input#

The following will read the content from console but it will mask the user’s input. No output will be shown but the content will be read.

metalcloud-cli secret create --name test3
Secret content:

Creating a secret from pipe#

echo "Basic YWRtaW5pc3RyYXRvckB2c3BoZXJlLmxvY2FsOkRlbGxSMGNrcyE=" | metalcloud-cli secret create --name vcenter_creds --pipe