Configuration overview

Configuration methods

In vaultwarden, you can perform configuration either via environment variables or an admin page (which writes settings to a config.json file under your data directory). It's important to note that each setting in config.json overrides the corresponding environment variable setting (if it exists). For example, if you set the environment variable DOMAIN=https://bitwarden.example.com, but your config.json includes "domain": "https://vw.example.com", then vaultwarden will generate various links based on what's in the config file (https://vw.example.com).

A common source of confusion is enabling the admin page (which creates the config.json file), changing some settings via the admin page (which sets the corresponding values in config.json), then later trying to change those settings via environment variable (which doesn't work because config.json overrides env vars). To avoid this confusion, it's highly recommended to stick to one configuration method or the other; that is, configure entirely via environment variables, or entirely via config.json (whether using the admin page or editing config.json directly).

Note that config settings under the Read-Only Config section of the admin page can only be set via environment variables, so you must restart vaultwarden to make changes to them. If you keep these environment variables in a file named .env, you can load them as follows:

• With standalone vaultwarden, by putting .env in the current working directory. vaultwarden will attempt to load this file on startup.
• With Docker, by using docker run --env-file <env-file> ... (to have Docker load the env file) or docker run -v /path/to/.env:/.env (to have vaultwarden load the .env file from inside the container). If you use --env-file, note that Docker does not unquote values, so make sure to use key=val rather than key="val" or key='val'.
• With Docker Compose, by using the env_file directive.

Configuration options

You can find the list of environment variables you can set at

https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden/blob/master/.env.template

If you enable the admin page, that will also show the full list of config options.

In case there are any errors or omissions, the source of truth is

https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden/blob/master/src/config.rs (search for make_config! {)

Or you can use this direct link if your (Chromium-based) browser supports text fragments:

https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden/blob/master/src/config.rs#LC290:~:text=make_config!%20%7B,-folders

Setting the domain URL

Make sure to set the DOMAIN environment variable (or domain in the config file) to the URL you use to access your vaultwarden instance. If you don't, it's likely that various functionality will break mysteriously. Some examples:

• https://bitwarden.example.com
• https://bitwarden.example.com:8443 (non-default port)
• https://host.example.com/bitwarden (subdir hosting -- avoid URL-rewriting tricks whenever possible)