Setting up process.env variables using EXPORT while running node with sudo

I'm using node.js on EC2

I type 

EXPORT PORT=80

in terminal, and i see that it correctly saves it when i type EXPORT

But when I run my node.js app with the following:

...
console.log(process.env);
...

PORT is not listed in the object when I'm running it with sudo:

sudo node app.js

How do I set PORT so that I can access it from the process.env object while running node with sudo?

To set process.env variable use the following code:

sudo PORT=80 node server.js

Of course, you can set multiple process.env variables:

sudo PORT=80 HOST=localhost node server.js

Normally, EXPORT should work too. But sudo creates its own environments and then starts you program as root. So, you shall either add PORT to sudo's environment or force it to preserve your own environment.

To change sudo's environment you shall modify /root/.profile.

To force it to preserve your own environment use -E key:

sudo -E node app.js

If you want to set this up permanently:

  1. Open up your bash profile vim ~/.bash_profile
  2. Add the environment variable to the file export PORT=80
  3. Open up the sudoers config file sudo visudo
  4. Add the following line to the file exactly as so Defaults env_keep +="PORT"

Now when you run sudo node app.js it should work as desired, with the port set to 80.