Configuration

• Introduction
  • Base options
  • Database options
  • Mailer options
  • Cache options
  • Services
  • Authentication Guards
  • Session and security options
  • Development options
  • Advanced configuration
• Environment Configuration
  • Environment Variable Types
  • Retrieving Environment Configuration
  • Determining The Current Environment
  • Hiding Environment Variables From Debug Pages
• Accessing Configuration Values
• Configuration Caching
• Maintenance Mode

Introduction

Lychee's core configuration is managed using a .env file. It probably exists already in your directory, but if not it can be created by copying .env.example. The options which are already included in the .env file should be sufficient to cover the necessary configuration for the vast majority of all use-cases and setups. Using other options than those included in the .env file should rarely be necessary. However, this page contains a more complete list of the available options, incl. some highly advanced ones, together with descriptions and default values. For non-core options (for example UI options), take a look at Settings.

Base options

{note} APP_URL must only contain the hostname up to the Top Level Domain (tld) e.g. .com, .org etc. If you are using Lychee in a sub folder, specify the path after the tld here in the APP_DIR constant.
For example for https://lychee.test/path/to/lychee:
- set APP_URL to https://lychee.test
- and set APP_DIR to /path/to/lychee
We (LycheeOrg) do not recommend the use of APP_DIR.

{tip} For TIMEZONE, do not use an offset (+01:00) or an abbreviation (CEST)

Database options

Lychee supports MySQL/MariaDB, SQLite and PostgreSQL as database backends. Microsoft SQL Server can be used, but is unsupported. The configuration is managed using the DB_ variables.

DATABASE_URL

Some hosting providers give you a single URL containing all the information needed to configure your database. Therefore, Lychee has a DATABASE_URL option which only needs the database connection type. For example:

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DATABASE_URL="mysql://root:password@127.0.0.1/forge?charset=UTF-8"

If this applies to your hosting provider, you can skip the other DB configuration steps.

MySQL/MariaDB

The configuration is exactly the same for both systems.

SQLite

PostgreSQL

Microsoft SQL Server

{note} Microsoft SQL Server is not officially supported. It may work, but we can't help you if you have any issues with it that do not affect other DB systems as well.

Mailer options

Supported mailers are smtp, ses, mailgun, postmark or sendmail, which you can set using MAIL_DRIVER.

General options

SMTP

SES

SES can be configured using AWS settings. See AWS configuration.

Mailgun

Postmark

sendmail

No additional options.

Cache options

Lychee can use various services as cache driver to store temporary data. The driver is set using CACHE_DRIVER and supports: apc, array, file, memcached, redis or dynamodb.

General options

Memcached

DynamoDB

Base options are configured using AWS options. You need to create a table, please refer to the Laravel docs.

Redis

Also see Redis.

Database

There are no config options, however, you need to run php artisan cache:table to use this option.

Services

Lychee can interact with various third-party services. You can find config options for them here.

Redis

To use Redis, you need the PhpRedis PHP extension.

AWS

Authentication Guards

Support for token based authentication used by API requests.

Session and security options

Sessions are stored in the same locations as cache. You change the used driver using SESSION_DRIVER.

Advanced options

{note} These config options are advanced config options. Do not change them unless you know what you are doing.

Development options

{note} Don't use this in productive environments. May affect stability and performance.

Advanced configuration

{note} Only for advanced users familiar with PHP and Laravel. Never do this unless you know what you are doing.

You can look at the files in the config/ folder. They contain some options you can't configure using environmental variables and you are able to adapt Lychee completely to your needs.

Environment Configuration

It is often helpful to have different configuration values based on the environment where the application is running. For example, you may wish to use a different cache driver locally than you do on your production server.

To make this a cinch, Lychee utilizes the DotEnv PHP library by Vance Lucas. In a fresh Lychee installation, the root directory of your application will contain a .env.example file. You should make a copy of this file as .env.

Your .env file should not be committed to your application's source control, since each developer / server using your application could require a different environment configuration. Furthermore, this would be a security risk in the event an intruder gains access to your source control repository, since any sensitive credentials would get exposed.

If you are developing with a team, you may wish to continue including a .env.example file with your application. By putting placeholder values in the example configuration file, other developers on your team can clearly see which environment variables are needed to run your application. You may also create a .env.testing file. This file will override the .env file when running PHPUnit tests or executing Artisan commands with the --env=testing option.

{tip} Any variable in your .env file can be overridden by external environment variables such as server-level or system-level environment variables.

Environment Variable Types

All variables in your .env files are parsed as strings, so some reserved values have been created to allow you to return a wider range of types from the env() function:

If you need to define an environment variable with a value that contains spaces, you may do so by enclosing the value in double quotes.

APP_NAME="My Application"

Retrieving Environment Configuration

All of the variables listed in this file will be loaded into the $_ENV PHP super-global when your application receives a request. However, you may use the env helper to retrieve values from these variables in your configuration files. In fact, if you review the Lychee configuration files, you will notice several of the options already using this helper:

'debug' => env('APP_DEBUG', false),

The second value passed to the env function is the "default value". This value will be used if no environment variable exists for the given key.

Determining The Current Environment

The current application environment is determined via the APP_ENV variable from your .env file. You may access this value via the environment method on the App facade:

$environment = App::environment();

You may also pass arguments to the environment method to check if the environment matches a given value. The method will return true if the environment matches any of the given values:

if (App::environment('development')) {
    // The environment is development
}

if (App::environment(['development', 'production'])) {
    // The environment is either development OR production...
}

{tip} The current application environment detection can be overridden by a server-level APP_ENV environment variable. This can be useful when you need to share the same application for different environment configurations, so you can set up a given host to match a given environment in your server's configurations.

Hiding Environment Variables From Debug Pages

When an exception is uncaught and the APP_DEBUG environment variable is true, the debug page will show all environment variables and their contents. In some cases you may want to obscure certain variables. You may do this by updating the debug_blacklist option in your config/app.php configuration file.

Some variables are available in both the environment variables and the server / request data. Therefore, you may need to blacklist them for both $_ENV and $_SERVER:

return [

    // ...

    'debug_blacklist' => [
        '_ENV' => [
            'APP_KEY',
            'DB_PASSWORD',
        ],

        '_SERVER' => [
            'APP_KEY',
            'DB_PASSWORD',
        ],

        '_POST' => [
            'password',
        ],
    ],
];

Accessing Configuration Values

You may easily access your configuration values using the global config helper function from anywhere in your application. The configuration values may be accessed using "dot" syntax, which includes the name of the file and option you wish to access. A default value may also be specified and will be returned if the configuration option does not exist:

$value = config('app.timezone');

To set configuration values at runtime, pass an array to the config helper:

config(['app.timezone' => 'America/Chicago']);

Configuration Caching

To give your application a speed boost, you should cache all of your configuration files into a single file using the config:cache Artisan command. This will combine all of the configuration options for your application into a single file which will be loaded quickly by the framework.

You should typically run the php artisan config:cache command as part of your production deployment routine. The command should not be run during local development as configuration options will frequently need to be changed during the course of your application's development.

{note} If you execute the config:cache command during your deployment process, you should be sure that you are only calling the env function from within your configuration files. Once the configuration has been cached, the .env file will not be loaded and all calls to the env function will return null.

Maintenance Mode

When your application is in maintenance mode, a custom view will be displayed for all requests into your application. This makes it easy to "disable" your application while it is updating or when you are performing maintenance. A maintenance mode check is included in the default middleware stack for your application. If the application is in maintenance mode, a MaintenanceModeException will be thrown with a status code of 503.

To enable maintenance mode, execute the down Artisan command:

php artisan down

You may also provide message and retry options to the down command. The message value may be used to display or log a custom message, while the retry value will be set as the Retry-After HTTP header's value:

php artisan down --message="Upgrading Database" --retry=60

Even while in maintenance mode, specific IP addresses or networks may be allowed to access the application using the command's allow option:

php artisan down --allow=127.0.0.1 --allow=192.168.0.0/16

To disable maintenance mode, use the up command:

php artisan up

{tip} You may customize the default maintenance mode template by defining your own template at resources/views/errors/503.blade.php.

{tip} Caught a mistake or want to contribute to the documentation? Edit this page on Github!