How to Export a Multi-line Environment Variable in Bash/Terminal e.g: RSA Private Key

export the key

export PRIVATE_KEY=`cat ./gitbu.2018-03-23.private-key.pem`

test.sh

#!/bin/bash

echo "$PRIVATE_KEY"; 

If you want to save the key to a .env file with the rest of your environment variables, all you needed to do is “wrap” the private key string in single quotes in the .env file … e.g: sh exports HELLO_WORLD='-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY----- MIIEpAIBAAKCAQEA04up8hoqzS1+APIB0RhjXyObwHQnOzhAk5Bd7mhkSbPkyhP1 ... iWlX9HNavcydATJc1f0DpzF0u4zY8PY24RVoW8vk+bJANPp1o2IAkeajCaF3w9nf q/SyqAWVmvwYuIhDiHDaV2A== -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----'
So the following command will work:

echo "export PRIVATE_KEY='`cat ./gitbu.2018-03-23.private-key.pem`'" >> .env

Followed by:

source .env

Now the key will be in your .env file and whenever you source .env it will be exported.