# How to Best Store and Access Credentials in Julia?
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-best-store-and-access-credentials-in-julia/54997
**Category:** General Usage
**Tags:** question, first-steps, data, security
**Created:** [February 10, 2021, 2:31pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-best-store-and-access-credentials-in-julia/54997 "2021-02-10T14:31:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@TheCedarPrince](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/TheCedarPrince)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2021, 2:31pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-best-store-and-access-credentials-in-julia/54997/1 "2021-02-10T14:31:20Z")
Hi all,
I was recently stumped by something:
Suppose I have some credentials I need to store to access a SQL DB. How should I best store these credentials for Julia to easily access?
My current pattern is to use a combo of `DataFrames.jl` and `CSV.jl` like so:
1. Create a `credentials.csv` like so:
```julia
user pass
lama 1234
```
1. Using `CSV.jl` and `DataFrames.jl`, read it into a DataFrame:
```julia
using CSV
using DataFrames
f = CSV.File("credentials.csv") |> DataFrame;
```
1. Parse and assign variables:
```julia
USERNAME = f[1, :user]
PASSWORD = f[1, :pass]
```
Is there a better way of doing this? Any better suggestions? Thank you!
~ tcp 🌳
---
### Author:  [@fredrikekre](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/fredrikekre)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2021, 2:35pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-best-store-and-access-credentials-in-julia/54997/2 "2021-02-10T14:35:45Z")
Usually environment variables are used for this, perhaps with an `.env` file that you source:
```julia
export DB_USER=fredrik
export DB_PASSWORD= *******
```
and then access as
```julia
db_user = ENV["DB_USER"]
db_password = ENV["DB_PASSWORD"]
```
Edit: Looks like Discourse automatically edits the post and insert `*`s instead of my password. I typed `DB_PASSWORD=hunter2` but it was edited.
---
### Author:  [@StatisticalMouse](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/StatisticalMouse)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2021, 2:45pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-best-store-and-access-credentials-in-julia/54997/3 "2021-02-10T14:45:58Z")
I believe the correct answer is: it depends (on the platform).
For example if you run in GCP: [Secret Manager | Google Cloud](https://cloud.google.com/secret-manager)
---
### Author:  [@Tero\_Frondelius](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tero_Frondelius)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2021, 2:46pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-best-store-and-access-credentials-in-julia/54997/4 "2021-02-10T14:46:45Z")
Maybe, one could make a function that would interactively ask the credentials if those env-variables are empty.
Does anyone know easy cyber secure solution?
---
### Author:  [@TheCedarPrince](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/TheCedarPrince)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2021, 3:09pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-best-store-and-access-credentials-in-julia/54997/5 "2021-02-10T15:09:33Z")
I really like this solution! Thanks @fredrikekre - when you say source, how would I do that? Would it be as simple as `include("credentials.env")` or how do you imagine it?
I like the function idea @Tero_Frondelius - I will prototype something and post back later.
---
### Author:  [@fredrikekre](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/fredrikekre)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2021, 3:12pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-best-store-and-access-credentials-in-julia/54997/6 "2021-02-10T15:12:11Z")
> [@TheCedarPrince](#):
>
> when you say source, how would I do that?
I was referring to the shell command [`source`](https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html#index-_002e):
```shell
$ cat .env
export DB_USER=fredrik
$ source .env
$ julia -E 'ENV["DB_USER"]'
"fredrik"
```
---
### Author:  [@TheCedarPrince](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/TheCedarPrince)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2021, 3:15pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-best-store-and-access-credentials-in-julia/54997/7 "2021-02-10T15:15:12Z")
Oh gotcha! Do you happen to know of an analogous method I could do this for within Julia?
---
### Author:  [@Skoffer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Skoffer)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2021, 3:37pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-best-store-and-access-credentials-in-julia/54997/8 "2021-02-10T15:37:53Z")
You can just save credentials in a Julia file and add it with `include`
---
### Author:  [@johnh](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/johnh)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2021, 3:54pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-best-store-and-access-credentials-in-julia/54997/9 "2021-02-10T15:54:20Z")
Do not save credentials in a file within your source tree. I an no expert.
If you upload to Github/Gitlab you have a security breach - I believe Github scans repositories for private keys which are uploaded in files.
A recent big security problem was triggered by keeping credentials in a file.
---
### Author:  [@Skoffer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Skoffer)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2021, 5:41pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-best-store-and-access-credentials-in-julia/54997/10 "2021-02-10T17:41:39Z")
That’s true, so I usually generate two files: secrets.jl and secrets\_template.jl You put secrets.jl in .gitignore and write all necessary constants in secrets\_template.jl without values of course. This way you always know how to deploy your script.
---
### Author:  [@TheCedarPrince](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/TheCedarPrince)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2021, 6:14pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-best-store-and-access-credentials-in-julia/54997/11 "2021-02-10T18:14:45Z")
@Skoffer - how do you happen to generate these two files? I ideally would like to take in user input, write that to a Julia file that could then be ran and export these user defined values whenever they run a package I am creating.
---
### Author:  [@Skoffer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Skoffer)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2021, 10:58am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-best-store-and-access-credentials-in-julia/54997/12 "2021-02-11T10:58:22Z")
It looks like you have a slightly different scenario in mind. You can see an example of what I said for example [here](https://github.com/Arkoniak/SOtoZulip.jl#configuration). I.e. it is assumed, that the user should do the following
1. Clone your application
2. Copy `secrets_template.jl` to `secrets.jl`
3. Edit file `secrets.jl` by hand.
Of course, it means, that the user is advanced enough, to understand what is `.gitignore`, how relative paths are working and can without errors edit julia files. If it is a problem, then I would recommend to use environment variables, it is much easier to explain and it is less error prone.
You can try to find middle ground, by using `.env` file, so less advanced users can just setup environment variables on os level, and more advanced users can write all values in `.env` file and get a more flexible approach. To avoid issues with file sourcing, you can add something like this to the beginning of your application
```julia
function load_dotenv(filename = ".env")
isfile(filename) || return
for line in eachline(filename)
var, val = strip.(split(line, "="))
ENV[var] = val
end
end
load_dotenv()
```
This way `.env` will override any environment variables and will do nothing if the file does not exist. As a side note, it could be good to revive [DotEnv.jl](https://github.com/vmari/DotEnv.jl) which was written specifically for this purposes.
Of course, you still can simplify users life by creating something like `gen_dotenv.jl` with the content
```julia
function gen_dotenv()
print("User: ")
user = readline()
pass = read(Base.getpass("Password"), String)
open(".env", "w") do io
println(io, "USER = ", user)
print(io, "PASSWORD = ", pass)
end
end
gen_dotenv()
```
and explain to a user, that he should run this script at the root of the application.
---
### Author:  [@ffevotte](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ffevotte)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2021, 12:21pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-best-store-and-access-credentials-in-julia/54997/13 "2021-02-11T12:21:35Z")
> [@Skoffer](#):
>
> As a side note, it could be good to revive [DotEnv.jl](https://github.com/vmari/DotEnv.jl) which was written specifically for this purposes.
I was going to advise using `DotEnv.jl` when I saw this comment. Is it dead? I was under the impression that it simply did not get updated because there wasn’t much to do anyway…
In any case, if `DotEnv.jl` is indeed dead, I do think it would be important to revive it. I know about several people relying on it in production environments.
---
### Author:  [@Skoffer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Skoffer)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2021, 12:30pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-best-store-and-access-credentials-in-julia/54997/14 "2021-02-11T12:30:09Z")
Ah, my bad, it uses old `REQUIRE` instead of `Project.toml`, which is why I decided that it is dead. Maybe cosmetic fresh up is all that is needed.