sinatra app can't find environmental variable but test script can - ruby

Question

I'm using the presence of an environmental variable to determine if my app is deployed or not (as adversed to running on my local machine).
My test script can find and display the variable value but my according to my app the variable isn't present.
test.rb
Secret_Key_Path = ENV['APPLICATION_VERSION'] ? '/path/to/encrypted_data_bag_secret' : File.expand_path('~/different/path/to/encrypted_data_bag_secret')
puts ENV['APPLICATION_VERSION']
puts Secret_Key_Path
puts File.exists? Secret_Key_Path
info.rb (the relevant bit)
::Secret_Key_Path = ENV['APPLICATION_VERSION'] ? '/path/to/encrypted_data_bag_secret' : File.expand_path('~/different/path/to/encrypted_data_bag_secret')
If I log the value of Secret_Key_Path it logs as the value I don't expect (i.e. '~/different/path/to/encrypted_data_bag_secret' instead of '/path/to/encrypted_data_bag_secret')
Here's how I start my app (from inside of my main executable script, so I can just run app install from any where instead of having to go to the folder)
exec "(cd /path/to/app/root && exec sudo rackup --port #{80} --host #{'0.0.0.0'} --pid /var/run/#{NAME}.pid -O NAME[#{NAME}] -D)"
if I do env | grep APP I get:
APPLICATION_VERSION=1.0.130
APPLICATION_NAME=app-name
It was suggested that it was an execution context problem but I'm not sure how to fix that if it were that.
So Whats going on? Any help & suggestion would be appreciated.

Answer 1

You can keep your environment variables with sudo by using the -E switch:
From the manual:
-E, --preserve-env
Indicates to the security policy that the user wishes to preserve their existing environment variables. The security policy may
return an error if the user does not have permission to preserve the environment.
Example:
$ export APPLICATION_VERSION=1.0.130
$ export APPLICATION_NAME=app-name
Check the variables:
$ sudo -E env | grep APP
and you should get the output:
APPLICATION_NAME=app-name
APPLICATION_VERSION=1.0.130
Also if you want to keep variables permanently keeped you can add to the /etc/sudoers file:
Defaults env_keep += "APPLICATION_NAME APPLICATION_VERSION"