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Environment Variables and Configuration

Last updated: 12 minutes read.

To configure the Tyk Enterprise Developer Portal, you can use either a config file or environment variables. The below table provides reference to all options available to you when configuring the portal.

Portal settings

This section explains the general portal settings, including which port it will be listening on, how often it should synchronize API Products and plans with the Tyk Dashboard, and so on. Most of these settings are optional, except for the PORTAL_LICENSEKEY. If you don’t specify these settings, the default values will be used. However, you can leverage the settings below to customize the deployment of your portal.

Sample storage setting section via config file

{
  "HostPort": 3001,
  "RefreshInterval": 10,
  "LicenseKey": "your-license-key",
  "Theming": {
    "Theme": "default",
    "Path": "./themes"
  },
  "ProductDocRenderer": "stoplight",
  "LogLevel": "debug",
  "LogFormat": "dev",
  "TLSConfig": {
    "Enable": true,
    "InsecureSkipVerify": true,
    "Certificates": [
      {
        "Name": "localhost",
        "CertFile": "portal.crt",
        "KeyFile": "portal.key"
      }
    ]
  },
  "PortalAPISecret": "your-portal-api-secret"
}

Sample storage setting section via environment variables

PORTAL_HOSTPORT=3001
PORTAL_REFRESHINTERVAL=10
PORTAL_LICENSEKEY=your-license-key
PORTAL_THEMING_THEME=default
PORTAL_THEMING_PATH=./themes
PORTAL_DOCRENDERER=stoplight
PORTAL_LOG_LEVEL=debug
PORTAL_LOG_FORMAT=dev
PORTAL_TLS_ENABLE=true
PORTAL_TLS_INSECURE_SKIP_VERIFY=true
PORTAL_TLS_CERTIFICATES = '[{"Name": "localhost","CertFile": "portal.crt","KeyFile": "portal.key"}]'
PORTAL_API_SECRET=your-portal-api-secret

PORTAL_HOSTPORT

Config file: HostPort
Type: int
Description: The port on which the portal will run inside the container. Not required. If it is not specified, the default value is 3001.

PORTAL_REFRESHINTERVAL

Config file: RefreshInterval
Type: int
Description: How the portal will synchronise API Products and plans with the Tyk Dashboard. The value is specified in minutes. Not required. If it is not specified, the default value is 10.

PORTAL_LICENSEKEY

Config file: LicenseKey
Type: string
Description: A licence key that Tyk provides. Required to start the portal.

PORTAL_THEMING_THEME

Config file: Theming.Theme
Type: string
Description: The name of a theme the portal should use after the start-up. You can change this later via the Themes UI. It’s not required to specify as the portal comes with only one theme named default, therefore, PORTAL_THEMING_THEME defaults default. However, if you already created a theme and want the portal to use when it’s starts for the first time, then you can use this setting to achieve that.

PORTAL_THEMING_PATH

Config file: Theming.Path
Type: string
Description: Defines a folder where themes are located. Depending on the storage type that you use, you can specify either a relative or an absolute path:

  • If you use the fs storage type, you can specify both a relative path (e.g., ./themes) and an absolute path (e.g., /themes)
  • If you use the s3 or db storage type, however, you can only use an absolute path (e.g., /themes).

The default value for this variable is ./themes, so it’s important to redefine it if you plan to use the s3 or db storage types.

PORTAL_THEMING_DISABLE_UPLOAD

Config file: Theming.DisableUpload
Type: boolean
Description: Disables uploading theme via the UI. The default value is false.

PORTAL_MAX_UPLOAD_SIZE

Config file: MaxUploadSize
Type: int
Description: Defines the maximum size in bytes of a theme file that can be uploaded via the UI. The default value is 33554432 bytes (32 mb).

Please note that the size of individual files should not exceed 5 MB. If the size of any individual file in a theme exceeds 5 MB, the theme will not be uploaded, even if the total size of all files is less than PORTAL_MAX_UPLOAD_SIZE.

PORTAL_DOCRENDERER

Config file: ProductDocRenderer
Type: string
Options:

  • stoplight to use Stoplight as a documentation renderer;
  • redoc to use Redoc as a documentation renderer.

Description: Use this setting to specify which OAS documentation renderer to use to render Open API Specification. Not required. If it is not specified, the default value is stoplight.

PORTAL_DCR_LOG_ENABLED

Config file: DCRLogEnabled
Type: boolean
Description: When enabled, the portal will print raw responses from OAuth2.0 Identity Provider for the DCR flow. Raw responses from the Identity Providers may contain sensitive information, therefore we recommend enabling this option only for debugging purposes. Available options are:

  • true for enabling the detailed logs;
  • false for disabling the detailed logs. The default value is false.

Audit log settings

This section explains how to configure the audit log in the portal. When the audit log is enabled, each admins’ action will leave a trace in the portal.log file located at in the directory specified by the PORTAL_AUDIT_LOG_ENABLE setting.

PORTAL_AUDIT_LOG_ENABLE

Config file: AuditLog.Enable
Type: boolean
Description: Enables the audit log capability. The default value is false.

PORTAL_AUDIT_LOG_PATH

Config file: AuditLog.Path
Type: string
Description: Path to a directory with the audit log file. When audit log is enabled, the portal will create a file called portal.log in that directory. All admin actions will be reflected in that file.

Session management

This section explains how to configure session management for the portal. Using the settings below, you can configure:

  • Name of the portal’s session cookie.
  • Various aspects of cookie security, including: should it be sent using an TLS-encrypted connection and is it accessible by Javascript API on the client-side?
  • Cookie encryption key.
  • Cookie lifetime.

PORTAL_SESSION_NAME

Config file: Session.Name
Type: string
Description: Name of the portal’s cookie. Default value is portal-session.

PORTAL_SESSION_SECURE

Config file: Session.Secure
Type: boolean
Description: Controls whether the portal adds the Secure attribute to the Set-Cookie header in all responses from the portal’s backend, except for the admin APIs. It’s important to note that if the connection between the portal and the browser is not secured with TLS, the browser will ignore the Secure attribute. We recommend enabling TLS and setting this attribute to true for all production environments. Default value is false.

PORTAL_SESSION_HTTPONLY

Config file: Session.HttpOnly
Type: boolean
Description: Controls whether the portal adds the HttpOnly attribute to the Set-Cookie header in all responses from the portal’s backend, except for the admin APIs. This cookie attribute controls if the cookie is only accessible at the server and not by Javascript on the client side. This is a security measure to prevent XSS attacks.

We recommend setting it to true in production environments. The default value is true.

PORTAL_SESSION_SAMESITE

Config file: Session.SameSite
Type: string
Description: Controls the value of the SameSite attribute for the portal’s cookie. The portal adds the SameStie attribute with the value specified in PORTAL_SESSION_SAMESITE to the Set-Cookie header in all responses from the portal’s backend, except for the admin APIs. Available options are:

  • None;
  • Lax;
  • Strict.

The default value is Strict. If the value specified in the PORTAL_SESSION_SAMESITE setting does not match any of the above-mentioned options, it defaults to Strict.

PORTAL_SESSION_KEY

Config file: Session.Key
Type: string
Description: The cookie encryption key. The default value is a random 32-bytes string.

PORTAL_SESSION_LIFETIME

Config file: Session.LifeTime
Type: int
Description: The lifetime of the portal’s cookie in seconds. The default value is 3600 seconds.

PORTAL_ENABLE_HTTP_PROFILER

Config file: EnableHttpProfiler
Type: boolean
Description: Enables debugging of the portal by exposing the Golang profiling information at /debug/pprof/. The default value is false.

Profiling

We recommend using the profiler only in non-production environments. Be sure to disable it in production by setting PORTAL_ENABLE_HTTP_PROFILER to false.

PORTAL_LOG_LEVEL

Config file: LogLevel
Type: string
Description: Defines the log level, available options are:

  • debug
  • info
  • warn
  • error
  • dpanic
  • panic
  • fatal

PORTAL_LOG_FORMAT

Config file: LogFormat
Type: string
Description: Defines the log format, available options are:

  • dev for verbose human-readable output
  • prod for output in json format.

PORTAL_TLS_ENABLE

Config file: TLSConfig.Enable
Type: boolean
Description: Enables TLS. The default value is false.

PORTAL_TLS_INSECURE_SKIP_VERIFY

Config file: TLSConfig.InsecureSkipVerify
Type: boolean
Description: Skip verification of self-signed certificates.

PORTAL_TLS_CERTIFICATES

Config file: TLSConfig.Certificates
Type: json
Description: JSON (or JSON-formatted string in case of environment variable) containing list of certificates. Each certificate is defined by three properties:

  • Name
  • CertFile
  • KeyFile

PORTAL_API_SECRET

Config file: PortalAPISecret
Type: string
Description: API secret for enabling Single Sign-on (SSO) flow with the Tyk Identity Broker. You can specify any string value in this setting. Omit this setting if you don’t require SSO.

Storage settings

Using variables from this section, you can configure storage for the portal’s CMS assets such as themes, images, and Open API Specification files. The portal supports two types of storage:

  • S3 volume;
  • And filesystem.

Sample storage setting section via config file

{
  "Storage": "s3",
  "S3": {
    "AccessKey": "your-access-key",
    "SecretKey": "your-secret-key",
    "Region": "sa-east-1",
    "Endpoint": "https://s3.sa-east-1.amazonaws.com",
    "Bucket": "your-portal-bucket",
    "ACL": "private",
    "PresignURLs": true
    }
}

Sample storage setting section via environment variables

PORTAL_STORAGE=s3
PORTAL_S3_AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your-access-key
PORTAL_S3_AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your-secret-key
PORTAL_S3_REGION=sa-east-1
PORTAL_S3_ENDPOINT=your-portal-bucket
PORTAL_S3_BUCKET=https://s3.sa-east-1.amazonaws.com
PORTAL_S3_ACL=private
PORTAL_S3_PRESIGN_URLS=true

PORTAL_STORAGE

Config file: Storage
Type: string
Options:

  • fs to use file system storage type;
  • db to use the portal’s main database. If the db is selected as a storage type, the portal application will create appropriate structure in the database that
  • s3 to use S3 volume for storing the portal assets.

Description: Defines which type of storage to use for the portal’s CMS assets. Not required. If it is not specified, the default value is fs.

PORTAL_S3_AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID

Config file: S3.AccessKey
Type: string
Description: Access key for your S3 bucket. This option is only required for the s3 storage type and will be ignored for the fs and db storage types.

PORTAL_S3_AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY

Config file: S3.SecretKey
Type: string
Description: Secret access key for your S3 bucket. This option is only required for the s3 storage type and will be ignored for the fs and db storage types.

PORTAL_S3_REGION

Config file: S3.Region
Type: string
Description: AWS region where the S3 bucket is hosted. E.g., sa-east-1. This option is only required for the s3 storage type and will be ignored for the fs and db storage types.

PORTAL_S3_ENDPOINT

Config file: S3.Endpoint
Type: string
Description: URL to object storage service. E.g., https://s3.sa-east-1.amazonaws.com or https://play.min.io. This option is only required for the s3 storage type and will be ignored for the fs and db storage types.

PORTAL_S3_BUCKET

Config file: S3.Bucket
Type: string
Description: Name of the S3 bucket. Required only for the s3 storage type. This option is only required for the s3 storage type and will be ignored for the fs and db storage types.

PORTAL_S3_ACL

Config file: S3.ACL
Type: string
Description: ACL permissions are set on the bucket, with options including private, public-read, public-read-write, and authenticated-read. If the bucket uses a policy to set permissions, you should leave the ACL value empty. This option is only required for the s3 storage type and will be ignored for the fs and db storage types.

PORTAL_S3_PRESIGN_URLS

Config file: S3.PresignURLs
Type: string
Description: The PresignURLs option instructs the client to retrieve presigned URLs for the objects. This is particularly useful if the bucket is private and you need to access the object directly, such as when displaying an image on a web page. This option is only required for the s3 storage type and will be ignored for the fs and db storage types.

TLS configuration

This section explains the TLS configuration settings to enable connection to the portal’s UI over HTTPS.

PORTAL_TLS_ENABLE

Config file: TLSConfig.Enable
Type: boolean
Description: Enables or disables connection over https. When TLS is enabled, the portal will expect a TLS certificate to be provided via PORTAL_TLS_CERTIFICATES. When TLS is enabled and no certificates are provided, the portal won’t start. The default value is false.

PORTAL_TLS_CERTIFICATES

Config file: TLSConfig.Certificates
Type: string
Description: A JSON formatted string that provides the hostname , in addition to the paths to a TLS certificate and key file:

  • Name: The hostname of the portal. This should match with the hostname of the certificate file.
  • CertFile: The path to a TLS certificate file in the CRT format for the specified hostname.
  • KeyFile: The path to a TLS key file for the specified hostname. Example:
[{"Name": "tyk.io","CertFile": "portal.crt","KeyFile": "portal.key"}]

Database connection settings

This section provides a reference for the database connection settings used in the portal.

Sample database connection setting section via config file

{
  "Database": {
    "Dialect": "mysql",
    "ConnectionString": "admin:secr3t@(localhost:3308)/portal?charset=utf8&parseTime=True&loc=Local",
    "EnableLogs": true,
    "MaxRetries": 3,
    "RetryDelay": 2000
  }
}

Sample database connection setting section via environment variables

PORTAL_DATABASE_DIALECT="mysql"
PORTAL_DATABASE_CONNECTIONSTRING="admin:secr3t@(localhost:3308)/portal?charset=utf8&parseTime=True&loc=Local"
PORTAL_DATABASE_ENABLELOGS=true
PORTAL_DATABASE_MAXRETRIES=3
PORTAL_DATABASE_RETRYDELAY=5000

PORTAL_DATABASE_DIALECT

Config file: Database.Dialect
Type: string
Description: A database will be used to store the portal data. Available dialects are:

  • mysql
  • postgres
  • sqlite3

PORTAL_DATABASE_CONNECTIONSTRING

Config file: Database.ConnectionString
Type: string
Description: Connection string to the selected database. This setting must be present if the PORTAL_DATABASE_DIALECT is specified.

PORTAL_DATABASE_ENABLELOGS

Config file: Database.EnableLogs
Type: boolean
Description: Enables logging connection to the database. We recommend disabling this in production environments.

PORTAL_DATABASE_MAXRETRIES

Config file: Database.MaxRetries
Type: boolean
Description: Defines how many times the portal will retry to connect to the database. Optional, the default value is 3.

PORTAL_DATABASE_RETRYDELAY

Config file: Database.MaxRetries
Type: boolean
Description: Defines delay between connect attempts (in milliseconds). Optional, the default value is 5000.

CORS settings

This section explains how to configure CORS for the portal.

PORTAL_CORS_ENABLE

Config file: CORS.Enable
Type: boolean
Description: Enables or disables the CORS settings for the portal. When disabled no CORS settings are applied. In other words, any cross-origin request will be denied. When enabled, the below defined CORS settings are applied. The default value is false.

PORTAL_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS

Config file: CORS.AllowedOrigins
Type: [string]
Description: A list of origin domains to allow access from. Wildcards are also supported, e.g. [*.foo.com] will allow access from any domain that ends with .foo.com. By default, no origins are allowed. To apply this setting an array of the allowed origins.

To configure using a configuration file:

{
  "CORS": {
    "AllowedOrigins": ["*.foo.com","*.bar.com"]
  }
}

To configure using an environment variable:

PORTAL_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS=*.foo.com,*.bar.com

PORTAL_CORS_ALLOWED_HEADERS

Config file: CORS.AllowedHeaders
Type: [string]
Description: Headers that are allowed within a request. To apply this setting, specify an array of the allowed headers. By default, no headers are allowed.

To configure using a configuration file:

{
  "CORS": {
    "AllowedHeaders": ["X-Method-Override","X-API-Key"]
  }
}

To configure using an environment variable:

PORTAL_CORS_ALLOWED_HEADERS=X-Method-Override,X-API-Key

PORTAL_CORS_ALLOWED_METHODS

Config file: CORS.AllowedMethods
Type: [string]
Description: A list of methods that are allowed access access. To apply this setting specify an array of the allowed methods. By default, GET and POST methods are allowed.

To configure using a configuration file:

{
  "CORS": {
    "AllowedMethods": ["GET", "POST", "HEAD"]
  }
}

To configure using an environment variable:

PORTAL_CORS_ALLOWED_METHODS=GET,POST,HEAD

PORTAL_CORS_MAX_AGE

Config file: CORS.MaxAge
Type: int
Description: Indicates how long the results of a preflight request can be cached. The default value is 0 which stands for no max age.

PORTAL_CORS_ALLOW_CREDENTIALS

Config file: CORS.AllowCredentials
Type: boolean
Description: Indicates whether the request can include user credentials like cookies, HTTP authentication or client side SSL certificates. The default is false.

Sample config file

{
  "HostPort": 3001,
  "RefreshInterval": 10,
  "LicenseKey": "your-license-key",
  "Theming": {
    "Theme": "default",
    "Path": "./themes"
  },
  "ProductDocRenderer": "stoplight",
  "LogLevel": "debug",
  "LogFormat": "dev",
  "TLSConfig": {
    "Enable": true,
    "InsecureSkipVerify": true,
    "Certificates": [
      {
        "Name": "localhost",
        "CertFile": "portal.crt",
        "KeyFile": "portal.key"
      }
    ]
  },
  "PortalAPISecret": "your-portal-api-secret",
  "Storage": "s3",
  "S3": {
    "AccessKey": "your-access-key",
    "SecretKey": "your-secret-key",
    "Region": "sa-east-1",
    "Endpoint": "https://s3.sa-east-1.amazonaws.com",
    "Bucket": "your-portal-bucket",
    "ACL": "private",
    "PresignURLs": true
  },
  "Database": {
    "Dialect": "mysql",
    "ConnectionString": "admin:secr3t@(localhost:3308)/portal?charset=utf8&parseTime=True&loc=Local",
    "EnableLogs": true,
    "MaxRetries": 3,
    "RetryDelay": 2000
  }
}

Sample .env file

PORTAL_HOSTPORT=3001
PORTAL_REFRESHINTERVAL=10
PORTAL_LICENSEKEY=your-license-key
PORTAL_THEMING_THEME=default
PORTAL_THEMING_PATH=./themes
PORTAL_DOCRENDERER=stoplight
PORTAL_LOG_LEVEL=debug
PORTAL_LOG_FORMAT=dev
PORTAL_TLS_ENABLE=true
PORTAL_TLS_INSECURE_SKIP_VERIFY=true
PORTAL_TLS_CERTIFICATES = '[{"Name": "localhost","CertFile": "portal.crt","KeyFile": "portal.key"}]'
PORTAL_API_SECRET=your-portal-api-secret
PORTAL_STORAGE=s3
PORTAL_S3_AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your-access-key
PORTAL_S3_AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your-secret-key
PORTAL_S3_REGION=sa-east-1
PORTAL_S3_ENDPOINT=your-portal-bucket
PORTAL_S3_BUCKET=https://s3.sa-east-1.amazonaws.com
PORTAL_S3_ACL=private
PORTAL_S3_PRESIGN_URLS=true
PORTAL_DATABASE_DIALECT="mysql"
PORTAL_DATABASE_CONNECTIONSTRING="admin:secr3t@(localhost:3308)/portal?charset=utf8&parseTime=True&loc=Local"
PORTAL_DATABASE_ENABLELOGS=true
PORTAL_DATABASE_MAXRETRIES=3
PORTAL_DATABASE_RETRYDELAY=5000

See also

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