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Environment Variables

This page contains all available environment variables supported by Mathesar. See the specific installation guides for the applicable environment variables and instructions on how to set them.

Backend configuration

SECRET_KEY

  • Description: A unique random string used by Django for cryptographic signing (see Django docs). It helps Mathesar secure user sessions and encrypt saved PostgreSQL passwords.
  • Format: A 50 character string

  • Additional information:

    To generate a secret key you can use this browser-based generator or run this command on MacOS or Linux:

    echo $(cat /dev/urandom | LC_CTYPE=C tr -dc 'a-zA-Z0-9' | head -c 50)

Internal Database configuration

Info

The database specified in this section will be used to store Mathesar’s internal data. Additionally, it can be optionally repurposed via Mathesar’s UI to store user data.

POSTGRES_DB

  • Description: Specifies a name for the database that will be created and used by Mathesar for managing internal data.
  • Default value: mathesar_django

POSTGRES_USER

  • Description: Specifies creation of a user with superuser privileges and a database with the same name.
  • Default value: mathesar

POSTGRES_PASSWORD

  • Description: Specifies the superuser password that is required to be set for the PostgreSQL docker image.
  • Default value: mathesar

POSTGRES_HOST

  • Description: Specifies the host name on which portgres listen for connections from client applications.
  • Default value: mathesar_db

POSTGRES_PORT

  • Description: Specifies the port on which portgres listen for connections from client applications.
  • Default value: 5432

Caddy reverse proxy configuration

Note

These variables are only needed if you’re using the Caddy configuration in our default Docker Compose file.

DOMAIN_NAME

  • Description: The public URL that will be used to access Mathesar (see Caddy docs).

  • Format: A URL or hostname

    Example values

    • https://example.com
    • localhost
    • http://localhost

  • Additional information

    • If the protocol is http, then Caddy will serve traffic via HTTP only.
    • If the protocol is https or is not specified, then Caddy will serve traffic via HTTPS (and will redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS). In this case Caddy will also attempt to automatically set up HTTPS with Let’s Encrypt for you (see Caddy docs).

    Tip

    • Set this to localhost if you’d like Mathesar to be available only on localhost
    • Set the protocol to http if you don’t want Caddy to automatically handle setting up SSL, e.g. http://example.com