CODEWITHSUNDEEP
airflow
Mark
Mark

Reputation: 538

what is the difference between AIRFLOW_HOME vs AIRFLOW__CORE__AIRFLOW_HOME environment variables

Documentation for Airflow https://airflow.readthedocs.io/en/1.9.0/configuration.html

talks about setting an environment variable named $AIRFLOW_HOME which is where airflow will be installed. The configuration file airflow.cfg is created by this process has an attribute called airflow_home in the [core] section at the top of the file. This makes sense.

But, the way you override airflow variables in the airflow.cfg with environment variables is with the pattern AIRFLOW__[SECTION]__VARIABLENAME. Based on that pattern, the airflow home environment variables should technically be managed by the environment variable AIRFLOW__CORE__AIRFLOW_HOME and not AIRFLOW_HOME.

Why the difference? Are both needed? is one of them not needed? do they do different things?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 5060

Answers (1)

joebeeson
joebeeson

Reputation: 4366

They do different things insofar that $AIRFLOW_HOME works as intended: the value you set will be what you get, and $AIRFLOW__CORE__AIRFLOW_HOME is likely to screw things up.

The $AIRFLOW_HOME value is special in that it's a prerequisite for a handful of actions and is read without support for the $AIRFLOW__[SECTION]__VARIABLENAME interpolation.

Upvotes: 2

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