Base64 encoding is adding a new line

Question

I'm trying to encode a database string using base64 on the command line in linux.

Once I do I add the value to a secret in kubernetes but my application is failing to connect to the database due to the db string not being accepted. There seems to be a newline getting added when I check the value in lens and this is not there in a similar cluster in the same secret

jdbc:postgresql://test.xxxxxxxx.eu-west-2.rds.amazonaws.com/test

deirdre$ echo jdbc:postgresql://test.xxxxxxxx.eu-west-2.rds.amazonaws.com/test | base64 | tr -d "
"
amRiYzpwb3N0Z3Jlc3FsOi8vdGVzdC54eHh4eHh4eC5ldS13ZXN0LTIucmRzLmFtYXpvbmF3cy5jb20vdGVzdAo=

Is there something I am doing wrong? or is there an issue with the /?

user_13858715 · Answer

You can fix those easy with

echo -n "string" | base64

"echo -n" removes the trailing newline character.

You can also see my last answer i gave to following Question Kubernetes secrets as environment variable add space character

user_9250303 · Answer

the problem is that base64 adds the newline in order to be compatible with older systems that have a maximum line width. you can add the -w 0 option to the base64 command to change the behavior so that it no longer adds new lines.

in your example this would be

echo "jdbc:postgresql://test.xxxxxxxx.eu-west-2.rds.amazonaws.com/test" | base64 -w 0

which results in

amRiYzpwb3N0Z3Jlc3FsOi8vdGVzdC54eHh4eHh4eC5ldS13ZXN0LTIucmRzLmFtYXpvbmF3cy5jb20vdGVzdAo=

edit:

printf "%s" jdbc:postgresql://test.xxxxxxxx.eu-west-2.rds.amazonaws.com/test | base64 -w 0

produces the correct output which adds an additional newline in the base64 encoded string which is apparently required for the url to be recognized as properly ended

Base64 encoding is adding a new line

2 Answers