Skip to main content

Environment variables

Server-side configuration is done partially through environment variables. These variables must be set before running the server.

  • DATABASE_URL - REQUIRED. The PostgreSQL database connection URL.
  • ENC_KEY - REQUIRED. The encryption key for authentication tokens. Must be a hex string of atleast length 48.
  • NODE_ENV - The environment in which the server is running. Must be either development or production. Defaults to development.
  • PORT - The port at which the server listens for connections. Defaults to 3000.
  • HOSTNAME - The hostname at which the server is available. Defaults to localhost.
  • MAILGUN_API_KEY - The Mailgun API key. If not set then email notifications will not be sent but will instead be logged to the console at the debug level.
  • MAILGUN_SENDER - The Mailgun sender email address. Defaults to empty string and only relevant if MAILGUN_API_KEY is also set.
  • MAILGUN_REPLY_TO - The Mailgun reply-to email address. Defaults to empty string and only relevant if MAILGUN_API_KEY is also set.
  • LOG_LEVEL - The log level - one of trace, debug, info, warn or error. Defaults to info.

When running the server in production you will should set NODE_ENV to production and also set the MAILGUN_API_KEY and MAILGUN_SENDER variables, otherwise users will not be able to sign up or login.

tip

You can see the full list of variables and their various options in env.ts.

Setting environment variables​

Environment variables can be set in a number of ways depending on the operating system you are using.

Unix-like systems (Linux, MacOS)​

On Unix-like systems you can set the environment variables in your shell before running the server. For example:

$ export ENC_KEY=0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef
$ export DATABASE_URL=postgres://username:password@localhost:5432/chatfall
$ ./chatfall-linux-x64 server

You can also set the environment variables inline as follows:

ENC_KEY=0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef DATABASE_URL=postgres://username:password@localhost:5432/chatfall ./chatfall-linux-x64 server

Windows​

On Windows you can set the environment variables in the command prompt before running the server. For example:

> set ENC_KEY=0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef
> set DATABASE_URL=postgres://username:password@localhost:5432/chatfall
> ./chatfall-windows-x64.exe server