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Github Actions - Concatenating env variables adding redundant space

I set up a dummy example and want to concatenate env variables that will be taken from secrets and encoded to base64 and used further.

I have two secrets MONGODB_USERNAME, MONGODB_PASSWORD;

Values of secrets are:

{
 "MONGODB_USERNAME": "MONGODB_USERNAME_SECRET_VALUE",
 "MONGODB_PASSWORD": "MONGODB_PASSWORD_SECRET_VALUE"
}

content of workflow file:

name: Deployment base64-example
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
      - dev
env:
  CACHE_KEY: node-deps
  MONGODB_DB_NAME: gha-demo
jobs:
  test:
    environment: testing
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    env:
      MONGODB_USERNAME: ${{ secrets.MONGODB_USERNAME }}
      MONGODB_PASSWORD: ${{ secrets.MONGODB_PASSWORD }}
      PORT: 8080
    steps:
      - name: Output information
        run: |
          echo "MONGODB_USERNAME: $MONGODB_USERNAME"
      - name: encode to base64 and  save to file and show file
        run: |
          export "AUTH_TOKEN=$(echo -n "${MONGODB_USERNAME}:${MONGODB_PASSWORD}" | base64)"
          echo $AUTH_TOKEN >> temp
          cat temp
  deploy:
    needs: test
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Output information
        env:
          PORT: 3000
        run: |        
          echo "MONGODB_DB_NAME: $MONGODB_DB_NAME"
          echo "MONGODB_USERNAME: $MONGODB_USERNAME"
          echo "${{ env.PORT }}"

I have code that concatenates variables MONGODB_USERNAME and MONGODB_PASSWORD encoded them and puts to a temp file.

        run: |
          export "AUTH_TOKEN=$(echo -n "${MONGODB_USERNAME}:${MONGODB_PASSWORD}" | base64)"
          echo $AUTH_TOKEN >> temp
          cat temp

decode works correct

echo "TU9OR09EQl9VU0VSTkFNRV9TRUNSRVRfVkFMVUU6TU9OR09EQl9QQVNTV09SRF9TRUNSRVRfVkFM VUU=" | base64 --decode

result

MONGODB_USERNAME_SECRET_VALUE:MONGODB_PASSWORD_SECRET_VALUE%

I don't know why but it adding a space in between when I am doing cat temp github actions

Why does it add this space and how to fix it? in the real scenario for example, with jfrog artifactory it can not download private packages because of this space.

Solution

  • This is because of the line wrapping behavior of base64. Use the argument --wrap 0 to base64 to disable line wrapping. See: man base64.

    Notice the space is included here when using base64 without arguments:

    alongstring="The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog on Stackoverflow"
result=$(echo $alongstring | base64)
echo $result
VGhlIHF1aWNrIGJyb3duIGZveCBqdW1wcyBvdmVyIHRoZSBsYXp5IGRvZyBvbiBTdGFja292ZXJm bG93Cg==

    But if you use base64 --wrap 0 this doesn't happen:

    result=$(echo $alongstring | base64 --wrap 0)
echo $result
VGhlIHF1aWNrIGJyb3duIGZveCBqdW1wcyBvdmVyIHRoZSBsYXp5IGRvZyBvbiBTdGFja292ZXJmbG93Cg==