Environment Variables
Typically an application will require some configuration to run properly. Dokku supports application configuration via environment variables. Environment variables may contain private data, such as passwords or API keys, so it is not recommended to store them in your application's repository.
The config
plugin provides the following commands to manage your variables:
config (<app>|--global) Display all global or app-specific config vars
config:get (<app>|--global) KEY Display a global or app-specific config value
config:set (<app>|--global) KEY1=VALUE1 [KEY2=VALUE2 ...] Set one or more config vars
config:unset (<app>|--global) KEY1 [KEY2 ...] Unset one or more config vars
The variables are available both at run time and during the application build/compilation step for buildpack-based deploys. For security reasons - and as per docker recommendations - Dockerfile-based deploys have variables available only during runtime, as noted in this issue.
For buildpack deploys, Dokku will create a /app/.env
file that can be used for legacy buildpacks. Note that this is not updated when config:set
or config:unset
is called, and is only written during a deploy
or ps:rebuild
. Developers are encouraged to instead read from the application environment directly, as the proper values will be available then.
Note
Global ENV
files are sourced before app-specific ENV
files. This means that app-specific variables will take precedence over global variables. Configuring your global ENV
file is manual, and should be considered potentially dangerous as configuration applies to all applications.
You can set multiple environment variables at once:
When setting variables with whitespaces, you need to escape them:
When setting or unsetting environment variables, you may wish to avoid an application restart. This is useful when developing plugins or when setting multiple environment variables in a scripted manner. To do so, use the --no-restart
flag:
If you wish to have the variables output in an eval
-compatible form, you can use the --export
flag:
dokku config node-js-app --export
# outputs variables in the form:
#
# export ENV='prod'
# export COMPILE_ASSETS='1'
# source in all the node-js-app app environment variables
eval $(dokku config node-js-app --export)
You can also output the variables in a single-line for usage in command-line utilities with the --shell
flag:
Special Config Variables
The following list config variables have special meaning and can be set in a variety of ways.
Warning
This list is not exhaustive, and may vary from version to version.
Name | Default | How to modify | Description |
---|---|---|---|
DOKKU_ROOT |
~dokku |
/etc/environment |
The root directory where dokku will store application repositories, as well as certain configuration files. |
DOKKU_IMAGE |
gliderlabs/herokuish |
/etc/environment ~dokku/.dokkurc ~dokku/.dokkurc/* |
The default image to use when building herokuish containers. |
DOKKU_LIB_ROOT |
/var/lib/dokku |
/etc/environment ~dokku/.dokkurc ~dokku/.dokkurc/* |
The directory where plugins, certain data, and general configuration is stored. |
PLUGIN_PATH |
$DOKKU_LIB_ROOT/plugins" |
/etc/environment ~dokku/.dokkurc ~dokku/.dokkurc/* |
The top-level directory where plugins are stored. |
PLUGIN_AVAILABLE_PATH |
$PLUGIN_PATH/available" |
/etc/environment ~dokku/.dokkurc ~dokku/.dokkurc/* |
The directory that holds all available plugins, including core. |
PLUGIN_ENABLED_PATH |
$PLUGIN_PATH/enabled" |
/etc/environment ~dokku/.dokkurc ~dokku/.dokkurc/* |
The directory that holds all enabled plugins, including core. |
PLUGIN_CORE_PATH |
$DOKKU_LIB_ROOT/core-plugins" |
/etc/environment ~dokku/.dokkurc ~dokku/.dokkurc/* |
The directory that stores all core plugins. |
PLUGIN_CORE_AVAILABLE_PATH |
$PLUGIN_CORE_PATH/available" |
/etc/environment ~dokku/.dokkurc ~dokku/.dokkurc/* |
The directory that stores all available core plugins. |
PLUGIN_CORE_ENABLED_PATH |
$PLUGIN_CORE_PATH/enabled" |
/etc/environment ~dokku/.dokkurc ~dokku/.dokkurc/* |
The directory that stores all enabled core plugins. |
DOKKU_LOGS_DIR |
/var/log/dokku |
/etc/environment ~dokku/.dokkurc ~dokku/.dokkurc/* |
Where dokku logs should be written to. |
DOKKU_EVENTS_LOGFILE |
$DOKKU_LOGS_DIR/events.log |
/etc/environment ~dokku/.dokkurc ~dokku/.dokkurc/* |
Where the events log file is written to. |
DOKKU_APP_NAME |
none | --app APP flag |
Name of application to work on. Respected by core plugins. |
DOKKU_APPS_FORCE_DELETE |
none | --force flag |
Whether to force delete an application. Also used by other plugins for destructive actions. |
DOKKU_DETACH_CONTAINER |
none | --detach flag |
Whether to detach a container started via dokku run . |
DOKKU_QUIET_OUTPUT |
none | --quiet flag |
Silences certain header output for dokku commands. |
DOKKU_RM_CONTAINER |
none | dokku config:set --rm-container flag --rm flag |
Whether to keep dokku run containers around or not. |
DOKKU_TRACE |
none | dokku trace on dokku trace false --trace flag |
Turn on very verbose debugging. |
DOKKU_APP_PROXY_TYPE |
nginx |
dokku proxy:set |
|
DOKKU_APP_RESTORE |
1 |
dokku config:set dokku ps:stop |
|
DOKKU_APP_TYPE |
herokuish |
Auto-detected by using buildpacks or dockerfile | |
DOKKU_CHECKS_DISABLED |
none | dokku checks:disable |
|
DOKKU_CHECKS_ENABLED |
none | dokku checks:enable |
|
DOKKU_CHECKS_SKIPPED |
none | dokku checks:skip |
|
DOKKU_CHECKS_WAIT |
5 |
dokku config:set |
Wait this many seconds for the container to start before running checks. |
DOKKU_CHECKS_TIMEOUT |
30 |
dokku config:set |
Wait this many seconds for each response before marking it as a failure. |
DOKKU_CHECKS_ATTEMPTS |
5 |
dokku config:set |
Number of retries for to run for a specific check before marking it as a failure |
DOKKU_DEFAULT_CHECKS_WAIT |
10 |
dokku config:set |
If no user-defined checks are specified - or if the process being checked is not a web process - this is the period of time Dokku will wait before checking that a container is still running. |
DOKKU_DEPLOY_BRANCH |
master |
dokku config:set |
Branch to deploy by default. |
DOKKU_DISABLE_PROXY |
none | dokku proxy:disable dokku proxy:enable |
Disables the proxy in front of your application, resulting in publicly routing the docker container. |
DOKKU_DOCKER_STOP_TIMEOUT |
10 |
dokku config:set |
Configurable grace period given to the docker stop command. If a container has not stopped by this time, a kill -9 signal or equivalent is sent in order to force-terminate the container. Both the ps:stop and apps:destroy commands also respect this value. If not specified, the docker defaults for the docker stop command will be used. |
DOKKU_DOCKERFILE_CMD |
dockerfile cmd | dokku config:set |
|
DOKKU_DOCKERFILE_CACHE_BUILD |
none | dokku config:set |
|
DOKKU_DOCKERFILE_ENTRYPOINT |
dockerfile entrypoint | dokku config:set |
|
DOKKU_DOCKERFILE_PORTS |
dockerfile ports | dokku config:set |
|
DOKKU_DOCKERFILE_START_CMD |
none | dokku config:set |
|
DOKKU_NGINX_PORT |
automatically assigned | dokku config:set |
|
DOKKU_NGINX_SSL_PORT |
automatically assigned | dokku config:set |
|
DOKKU_PROXY_PORT_MAP |
automatically assigned | dokku proxy:ports-add dokku proxy:ports-remove , dokku proxy:ports-clear |
|
DOKKU_SKIP_ALL_CHECKS |
none | dokku config:set |
|
DOKKU_SKIP_CLEANUP |
/etc/environment ~dokku/.dokkurc ~dokku/.dokkurc/* |
When a deploy is triggered, if this is set to a non-empty value, then old docker containers and images will not be removed. | |
DOKKU_SKIP_DEFAULT_CHECKS |
dokku config:set |
||
DOKKU_SKIP_DEPLOY |
dokku config:set |
||
DOKKU_WAIT_TO_RETIRE |
60 |
dokku config:set |
After a successful deploy, the grace period given to old containers before they are stopped/terminated. This is useful for ensuring completion of long-running http connections. |