Phusion Passenger and METEOR_SETTINGS

powderkeg · April 13, 2015, 10:41am

You tried putting passenger_env_var in the sites_enabled/[sitename] file, in a server block?

serkandurusoy · April 13, 2015, 11:11am

Yes I did, the configuration already works properly if I deploy as a node build.

If I deploy as a meteor app, the settings get silently swallowed by meteor.

powderkeg · April 13, 2015, 12:56pm

Ah ok, maybe you don’t need it anymore if it’s Passenger + Meteor (not node), but you need to use -settings /path/to/settings.json instead?

serkandurusoy · April 13, 2015, 1:21pm

That directive expects first param to be METEOR_SETTINGS and second param to be a valid json string, so a path to the settings.json file throws an error.

The problem seems to have followed this timeline:

Meteor used to allow both meteor_settings and --settings during meteor run and meteor_settings for meteor build deployments
passenger supported settings for build deployment, but not for meteor run
passenger added support, passing in meteor_settings to meteor run
meteor changed settings handling and made meteor_settings applied either for meteor tool or node, and --settings flag only applied to meteor run through a json file
passenger did not update its code to reflect that change

So now, what happens is, if you pass in meteor_settings to a meteor run through passenger:

if it is a file path, nginx fails to start
if it is invalid json, nginx starts but meteor fails to start
if it is valid json (the correct settings), it gets ignored by meteor

But if you pass in meteor_settings to a node build through passenger

it works!

My problem is, I was very happy with the previous way it worked, namely to be able to run passenger to manage either meteor run or meteor build and apply my settings either way. That was a very good flexibility providing my efficiency. Now if I use any kind of settings in my app, I either can’t use passenger, or I must meteor build and use that in passenger.

melody · December 23, 2015, 10:08am

Hi, I tried set nginx with this just like you. But could not read the setting.

passenger_env_var METEOR_SETTINGS '{"private": {"key": "value"}}'

Did log and got error: ReferenceError: METEOR_SETTINGS is not defined

console.log(METEOR_SETTINGS);

Any luck on your side?

serkandurusoy · December 23, 2015, 10:28am

When I do

passenger_env_var METEOR_SETTINGS '{"private": {"key": "value"}}'

Your app can see those settings through

console.log(Meteor.settings.private.key) // value

melody · December 24, 2015, 3:46am

Thanks for reply. I had it working.
I am looking for passing settings via file but not passenger_env_var.
There used to have the option but it gone.

meteor build --settings

If you know how to ship app with setting file, please let me know.

Many thanks.

prime · March 14, 2016, 9:53pm

@melody

Is meteor build really working? I read the docs, passenger use meteor bundle

melody · March 18, 2016, 4:21am

I use

meteor build --settings

under development mode. It works.
But for production, I have to set required env variables in the nginx config file. uses the

passenger_env_var

directive.

jamgold · March 25, 2016, 5:22am

According to meteor build --help that command option does not have a directive --settings

I am also trying to figure out a way to deploy a meteor app with passenger, and so far I have not been very successful. As a matter of fact, I can’t even get passenger to start with the output of meteor build.

Does anybody have a dead simple recipe that works for nginx + passenger + meteor build (1.2.1)? google finds many answers, but most are outdated or incomplete.

serkandurusoy · March 25, 2016, 7:07am

could you post your current conf?

jamgold · March 25, 2016, 3:17pm

Here is my conf (OSX with homebrew)

    server {
        server_name www.example.com;
        # Turn on Passenger
        passenger_enabled on;
        root /Volumes/Web/Meteor/build/bundle/public;
        passenger_app_type node;
        passenger_startup_file main.js;
        #
        # Tell your app where MongoDB is
        #
        passenger_env_var ROOT_URL http://www.example.com;
        passenger_env_var MONGO_URL mongodb://192.168.1.189:27017/www_example_com;
        passenger_env_var MONGO_OPLOG_URL mongodb://192.168.1.189:27017/local;
}

I did the npm install --production in bundle/programs/server but it throws

bundle/programs/server/node_modules/fibers/future.js:245
						throw(ex);
						      ^
Error: Module did not self-register.

serkandurusoy · March 25, 2016, 5:28pm

First off, you can provide your app your settings as I described over here

And in your case, it seems like you may be having a problem with your node version.

It should be 0.10.40 and you may be having a newer one getting picked up by passenger, which you can fix with the passenger_nodejs configuration option.

jamgold · March 25, 2016, 6:05pm

Damnit, forgot about that. I also run other node apps via passenger on my Mac, and they work fine with 0.12 node. I will use the node binary from meteor and see what happens. Thanks for pointing that out.

serkandurusoy · March 25, 2016, 6:12pm

That can be used as a per-server-block configuration so you can use it only for your meteor app’s configurations and passenger will use the default 0.12 for all your other node apps.

jamgold · March 26, 2016, 6:16am

Using the node binary from Meteor with passenger_nodejs worked. Thank you for pointing that out

iDoMeteor · April 12, 2016, 12:58am

Anyone tried supplying a path & filename for METEOR_SETTINGS in the passenger_env_var? I never thought about actually pasting JSON into the .confs, lol.

satya · December 22, 2016, 10:59am

There’s now native support for Meteor Settings file in Passenger

https://www.phusionpassenger.com/library/config/nginx/reference/#passenger_meteor_app_settings-filename

serkandurusoy · December 22, 2016, 11:06am

afaik that has always been the case, but it is only supported for unbundled meteor apps. once you’ve run meteor build and deploy using that, you still need to use the environment variable

finnfrotscher · January 11, 2017, 2:58pm

hi
I am running meteor passenger in bundled mode on ubuntu 16.04.
Everything works great but when I add passenger_env_var METEOR_SETTINGS as shown below my app crashes


    server {
        listen 443;
        server_name xxx.de
        ...
        passenger_env_var MONGO_URL mongodb://localhost:27017/db;
        passenger_env_var METEOR_SETTINGS '{"private": {"MAIL_URL": "smtp://finn@MAILSETTINGS"}}'

    }

with the following error @ systemctl status nginx.service

Jan 11 15:55:24 systemd[1]: Starting A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server...
Jan 11 15:55:24 nginx[2229]: nginx: [emerg] invalid number of arguments in "passenger_env_var" directive in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/site.conf:33
Jan 11 15:55:24 nginx[2229]: nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test failed
Jan 11 15:55:24 systemd[1]: nginx.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=1
Jan 11 15:55:24 systemd[1]: Failed to start A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server.
Jan 11 15:55:24 systemd[1]: nginx.service: Unit entered failed state.
Jan 11 15:55:24 systemd[1]: nginx.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

anyone know why?