Configuration

The configuration is based on the file config.hjson, which is located by default at config/config.hjson. To change the default location, you can set the environment variable LEMMY_CONFIG_LOCATION.

An additional environment variable LEMMY_DATABASE_URL is available, which can be used with a PostgreSQL connection string like postgres://lemmy:password@lemmy_db:5432/lemmy, passing all connection details at once.

If the Docker container is not used, manually create the database specified above by running the following commands:

cd server
./db-init.sh

Federation is not set up by default. You can add this this federation block to your lemmy.hjson, and ask other servers to add you to their allowlist.

Full config with default values

{
  # settings related to the postgresql database
  database: {
    # Username to connect to postgres
    user: "lemmy"
    # Password to connect to postgres
    password: "password"
    # Host where postgres is running
    host: "localhost"
    # Port where postgres can be accessed
    port: 5432
    # Name of the postgres database for lemmy
    database: "lemmy"
    # Maximum number of active sql connections
    pool_size: 5
  }
  # Settings related to activitypub federation
  # Pictrs image server configuration.
  pictrs: {
    # Address where pictrs is available (for image hosting)
    url: "http://localhost:8080/"
    # Set a custom pictrs API key. ( Required for deleting images )
    api_key: "string"
  }
  # Email sending configuration. All options except login/password are mandatory
  email: {
    # Hostname and port of the smtp server
    smtp_server: "localhost:25"
    # Login name for smtp server
    smtp_login: "string"
    # Password to login to the smtp server
    smtp_password: "string"
    # Address to send emails from, eg "noreply@your-instance.com"
    smtp_from_address: "noreply@example.com"
    # Whether or not smtp connections should use tls. Can be none, tls, or starttls
    tls_type: "none"
  }
  # Parameters for automatic configuration of new instance (only used at first start)
  setup: {
    # Username for the admin user
    admin_username: "admin"
    # Password for the admin user. It must be at least 10 characters.
    admin_password: "tf6HHDS4RolWfFhk4Rq9"
    # Name of the site (can be changed later)
    site_name: "My Lemmy Instance"
    # Email for the admin user (optional, can be omitted and set later through the website)
    admin_email: "user@example.com"
  }
  # the domain name of your instance (mandatory)
  hostname: "unset"
  # Address where lemmy should listen for incoming requests
  bind: "0.0.0.0"
  # Port where lemmy should listen for incoming requests
  port: 8536
  # Whether the site is available over TLS. Needs to be true for federation to work.
  tls_enabled: true
}

Lemmy-UI configuration

Lemmy-UI can be configured using environment variables, detailed in its README.