Configuration overview

Configuration methods

In bitwarden_rs, 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://bw.example.com", then bitwarden_rs will generate various links based on what's in the config file (https://bw.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).

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 bitwarden_rs 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)