Environment variables

This documentation was generated from source by running:

clojure -M:ee:doc environment-variables-documentation

Many settings in Metabase can be viewed and modified in the Admin Panel, or set via environment variables. The environment variables always take precedence. Note that, unlike settings configured in the Admin settings of your Metabase, the environment variables won’t get written into the application database.

How to set environment variables

Setting environment variables can be done in various ways depending on how you’re running Metabase.

JAR file:

# Mac, Linux and other Unix-based systems
export MB_SITE_NAME="Awesome Company"
# Windows Powershell
$env:MB_SITE_NAME="Awesome Company"
# Windows batch/cmd
set MB_SITE_NAME="Awesome Company"

java --add-opens java.base/java.nio=ALL-UNNAMED -jar metabase.jar

Or set it as Java property, which works the same across all systems:

java -DMB_SITE_NAME="Awesome Company" -jar metabase.jar

Docker:

docker run -d -p 3000:3000 -e MB_SITE_NAME="Awesome Company" --name metabase metabase/metabase

Environment variables on Metabase Cloud

If you’re running Metabase Cloud, you can contact support to adjust environment variables for your Metabase.


List of environment variables

MB_ADMIN_EMAIL

The email address users should be referred to if they encounter a problem.

MB_AGGREGATED_QUERY_ROW_LIMIT

Maximum number of rows to return for aggregated queries via the API.

Must be less than 1048575. This environment variable also affects how many rows Metabase includes in dashboard subscription attachments. This environment variable also affects how many rows Metabase includes in dashboard subscription attachments. See also MB_UNAGGREGATED_QUERY_ROW_LIMIT.

MB_ALLOWED_IFRAME_HOSTS

  • Type: string
  • Default: youtube.com, youtu.be, loom.com, vimeo.com, docs.google.com, calendar.google.com, airtable.com, typeform.com, canva.com, codepen.io, figma.com, grafana.com, miro.com, excalidraw.com, notion.com, atlassian.com, trello.com, asana.com, gist.github.com, linkedin.com, twitter.com, x.com
  • Exported as: allowed-iframe-hosts.
  • Configuration file name: allowed-iframe-hosts

Allowed iframe hosts.

MB_ANON_TRACKING_ENABLED

Enable the collection of anonymous usage data in order to help Metabase improve.

MB_API_KEY

  • Type: string
  • Default: null

When set, this API key is required for all API requests.

Middleware that enforces validation of the client via the request header X-Metabase-Apikey. If the header is available, then it’s validated against MB_API_KEY. When it matches, the request continues; otherwise it’s blocked with a 403 Forbidden response.

MB_APPLICATION_COLORS

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Choose the colors used in the user interface throughout Metabase and others specifically for the charts. You need to refresh your browser to see your changes take effect.

To change the user interface colors:

{
 "brand":"#ff003b",
 "filter":"#FF003B",
 "summarize":"#FF003B"
}

To change the chart colors:

{
 "accent0":"#FF0005",
 "accent1":"#E6C367",
 "accent2":"#B9E68A",
 "accent3":"#8AE69F",
 "accent4":"#8AE6E4",
 "accent5":"#8AA2E6",
 "accent6":"#B68AE6",
 "accent7":"#E68AD0"
}

MB_APPLICATION_FAVICON_URL

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Upload a file to use as the favicon.

MB_APPLICATION_FONT

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Replace “Lato” as the font family.

MB_APPLICATION_FONT_FILES

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Tell us where to find the file for each font weight. You don’t need to include all of them, but it’ll look better if you do.

Example value:

[
  {
    "src": "https://example.com/resources/font-400",
    "fontFormat": "ttf",
    "fontWeight": 400
  },
  {
    "src": "https://example.com/resources/font-700",
    "fontFormat": "woff",
    "fontWeight": 700
  }
]

See fonts.

MB_APPLICATION_LOGO_URL

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Upload a file to replace the Metabase logo on the top bar.

Inline styling and inline scripts are not supported.

MB_APPLICATION_NAME

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Replace the word “Metabase” wherever it appears.

MB_ATTACHMENT_TABLE_ROW_LIMIT

  • Type: positive-integer
  • Default: 20

Maximum number of rows to render in an alert or subscription image.

Range: 1-100. To limit the total number of rows included in the file attachment for an email dashboard subscription, use MB_UNAGGREGATED_QUERY_ROW_LIMIT.

MB_BCC_ENABLED

Whether or not bcc emails are enabled, default behavior is that it is.

MB_BREAKOUT_BIN_WIDTH

When using the default binning strategy for a field of type Coordinate (such as Latitude and Longitude), this number will be used as the default bin width (in degrees).

MB_BREAKOUT_BINS_NUM

When using the default binning strategy and a number of bins is not provided, this number will be used as the default.

MB_CHECK_FOR_UPDATES

Identify when new versions of Metabase are available.

MB_CONFIG_FROM_FILE_SYNC_DATABASES

  • Type: boolean
  • Default: true

Whether to (asynchronously) sync newly created Databases during config-from-file initialization. By default, true, but you can disable this behavior if you want to sync it manually or use SerDes to populate its data model.

MB_CUSTOM_FORMATTING

Object keyed by type, containing formatting settings.

MB_CUSTOM_GEOJSON

JSON containing information about custom GeoJSON files for use in map visualizations instead of the default US State or World GeoJSON.

MB_CUSTOM_HOMEPAGE

Pick one of your dashboards to serve as homepage. Users without dashboard access will be directed to the default homepage.

MB_CUSTOM_HOMEPAGE_DASHBOARD

ID of dashboard to use as a homepage.

MB_DB_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT_MS

  • Type: integer
  • Default: 10000

Consider metabase.driver/can-connect? / can-connect-with-details? to have failed if they were not able to successfully connect after this many milliseconds. By default, this is 10 seconds.

Timeout in milliseconds for connecting to databases, both Metabase application database and data connections. In case you’re connecting via an SSH tunnel and run into a timeout, you might consider increasing this value as the connections via tunnels have more overhead than connections without.

MB_DB_QUERY_TIMEOUT_MINUTES

  • Type: integer
  • Default: 20

By default, this is 20 minutes.

Timeout in minutes for databases query execution, both Metabase application database and data connections. If you have long-running queries, you might consider increasing this value. Adjusting the timeout does not impact Metabase’s frontend. Please be aware that other services (like Nginx) may still drop long-running queries.

MB_DOWNLOAD_ROW_LIMIT

  • Type: integer
  • Default: null
  • Exported as: download-row-limit.

Exports row limit excluding the header. xlsx downloads are limited to 1048575 rows even if this limit is higher.

MB_EE_AI_FEATURES_ENABLED

Enable AI features.

This feature is experimental.

MB_EE_OPENAI_API_KEY

The OpenAI API Key used in Metabase Enterprise.

This feature is experimental.

MB_EE_OPENAI_MODEL

The OpenAI Model (e.g. gpt-4, gpt-3.5-turbo).

This feature is experimental.

MB_EMAIL_FROM_ADDRESS

The email address you want to use for the sender of emails.

MB_EMAIL_FROM_NAME

The name you want to use for the sender of emails.

MB_EMAIL_MAX_RECIPIENTS_PER_SECOND

The maximum number of recipients, summed across emails, that can be sent per second. Note that the final email sent before reaching the limit is able to exceed it, if it has multiple recipients.

MB_EMAIL_REPLY_TO

The email address you want the replies to go to, if different from the from address.

MB_EMAIL_SMTP_HOST

The address of the SMTP server that handles your emails.

MB_EMAIL_SMTP_PASSWORD

SMTP password.

MB_EMAIL_SMTP_PORT

The port your SMTP server uses for outgoing emails.

MB_EMAIL_SMTP_SECURITY

SMTP secure connection protocol. (tls, ssl, starttls, or none).

MB_EMAIL_SMTP_USERNAME

SMTP username.

MB_EMBEDDING_APP_ORIGINS_INTERACTIVE

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Allow these space delimited origins to embed Metabase interactive.

MB_EMBEDDING_APP_ORIGINS_SDK

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Allow Metabase SDK access to these space delimited origins.

MB_EMBEDDING_HOMEPAGE

Embedding homepage status, indicating if its visible, hidden or has been dismissed.

MB_EMBEDDING_SECRET_KEY

Secret key used to sign JSON Web Tokens for requests to /api/embed endpoints.

MB_ENABLE_EMBEDDING_INTERACTIVE

Allow admins to embed Metabase via interactive embedding?

MB_ENABLE_EMBEDDING_SDK

Allow admins to embed Metabase via the SDK?

MB_ENABLE_EMBEDDING_STATIC

Allow admins to embed Metabase via static embedding?

MB_ENABLE_PASSWORD_LOGIN

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Allow logging in by email and password.

MB_ENABLE_PIVOTED_EXPORTS

Enable pivoted exports and pivoted subscriptions.

MB_ENABLE_PUBLIC_SHARING

Enable admins to create publicly viewable links (and embeddable iframes) for Questions and Dashboards?

MB_ENABLE_QUERY_CACHING

Allow caching results of queries that take a long time to run.

MB_ENABLE_XRAYS

Allow users to explore data using X-rays.

MB_ENUM_CARDINALITY_THRESHOLD

  • Type: integer
  • Default: 60

Enumerated field values with cardinality at or below this point are treated as enums in the pseudo-ddl used in some model prompts.

MB_FOLLOW_UP_EMAIL_SENT

  • Type: boolean
  • Default: false

Have we sent a follow up email to the instance admin?

MB_GOOGLE_AUTH_AUTO_CREATE_ACCOUNTS_DOMAIN

When set, allow users to sign up on their own if their Google account email address is from this domain.

MB_GOOGLE_AUTH_CLIENT_ID

Client ID for Google Sign-In.

MB_GOOGLE_AUTH_ENABLED

Is Google Sign-in currently enabled?

MB_HEALTH_CHECK_LOGGING_ENABLED

  • Type: boolean
  • Default: true

Whether to log health check requests from session middleware.

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Keyword setting to control whitelabeling of the help link. Valid values are :metabase, :hidden, and :custom. If :custom is set, the help link will use the URL specified in the help-link-custom-destination, or be hidden if it is not set.

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Custom URL for the help link.

MB_HUMANIZATION_STRATEGY

To make table and field names more human-friendly, Metabase will replace dashes and underscores in them with spaces. We’ll capitalize each word while at it, so ‘last_visited_at’ will become ‘Last Visited At’.

MB_IS_METABOT_ENABLED

Is Metabot enabled?

MB_JDBC_DATA_WAREHOUSE_MAX_CONNECTION_POOL_SIZE

  • Type: integer
  • Default: 15

Maximum size of the c3p0 connection pool.

Change this to a higher value if you notice that regular usage consumes all or close to all connections.

When all connections are in use then Metabase will be slower to return results for queries, since it would have to wait for an available connection before processing the next query in the queue.

For setting the maximum, see MB_APPLICATION_DB_MAX_CONNECTION_POOL_SIZE.

MB_JWT_ATTRIBUTE_EMAIL

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Key to retrieve the JWT users email address.

MB_JWT_ATTRIBUTE_FIRSTNAME

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Key to retrieve the JWT users first name.

MB_JWT_ATTRIBUTE_GROUPS

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Key to retrieve the JWT users groups.

MB_JWT_ATTRIBUTE_LASTNAME

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Key to retrieve the JWT users last name.

MB_JWT_ENABLED

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Is JWT authentication configured and enabled?

When set to true, will enable JWT authentication with the options configured in the MB_JWT_* variables. This is for JWT SSO authentication, and has nothing to do with Static embedding, which is MB_EMBEDDING_SECRET_KEY.

MB_JWT_GROUP_MAPPINGS

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

JSON containing JWT to Metabase group mappings.

JSON object containing JWT to Metabase group mappings, where keys are JWT groups and values are lists of Metabase groups IDs.

MB_JWT_GROUP_SYNC

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Enable group membership synchronization with JWT.

MB_JWT_IDENTITY_PROVIDER_URI

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

URL of JWT based login page.

MB_JWT_SHARED_SECRET

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

String used to seed the private key used to validate JWT messages. A hexadecimal-encoded 256-bit key (i.e., a 64-character string) is strongly recommended.

MB_JWT_USER_PROVISIONING_ENABLED

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

When we enable JWT user provisioning, we automatically create a Metabase account on JWT signin for users who don’t have one.

MB_LANDING_PAGE

Enter a URL of the landing page to show the user. This overrides the custom homepage setting above.

MB_LANDING_PAGE_ILLUSTRATION

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Options for displaying the illustration on the landing page.

MB_LANDING_PAGE_ILLUSTRATION_CUSTOM

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

The custom illustration for the landing page.

MB_LDAP_ATTRIBUTE_EMAIL

Attribute to use for the user’s email. (usually ‘mail’, ‘email’ or ‘userPrincipalName’).

MB_LDAP_ATTRIBUTE_FIRSTNAME

Attribute to use for the user’s first name. (usually ‘givenName’).

MB_LDAP_ATTRIBUTE_LASTNAME

Attribute to use for the user’s last name. (usually ‘sn’).

MB_LDAP_BIND_DN

The Distinguished Name to bind as (if any), this user will be used to lookup information about other users.

MB_LDAP_ENABLED

Is LDAP currently enabled?

MB_LDAP_GROUP_BASE

Search base for groups. Not required for LDAP directories that provide a ‘memberOf’ overlay, such as Active Directory. (Will be searched recursively).

MB_LDAP_GROUP_MAPPINGS

JSON containing LDAP to Metabase group mappings.

MB_LDAP_GROUP_MEMBERSHIP_FILTER

Group membership lookup filter. The placeholders {dn} and {uid} will be replaced by the user’s Distinguished Name and UID, respectively.

MB_LDAP_GROUP_SYNC

Enable group membership synchronization with LDAP.

MB_LDAP_HOST

Server hostname.

MB_LDAP_PASSWORD

The password to bind with for the lookup user.

MB_LDAP_PORT

Server port, usually 389 or 636 if SSL is used.

MB_LDAP_SECURITY

Use SSL, TLS or plain text.

MB_LDAP_SYNC_USER_ATTRIBUTES

Should we sync user attributes when someone logs in via LDAP?

MB_LDAP_SYNC_USER_ATTRIBUTES_BLACKLIST

  • Type: csv
  • Default: userPassword,dn,distinguishedName
  • Configuration file name: ldap-sync-user-attributes-blacklist

Comma-separated list of user attributes to skip syncing for LDAP users.

MB_LDAP_USER_BASE

Search base for users. (Will be searched recursively).

MB_LDAP_USER_FILTER

  • Type: string
  • Default: (&(objectClass=inetOrgPerson)(|(uid={login})(mail={login})))
  • Configuration file name: ldap-user-filter

User lookup filter. The placeholder {login} will be replaced by the user supplied login.

MB_LDAP_USER_PROVISIONING_ENABLED

When we enable LDAP user provisioning, we automatically create a Metabase account on LDAP signin for users who don’t have one.

MB_LOADING_MESSAGE

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Choose the message to show while a query is running. Possible values are “doing-science”, “running-query”, or “loading-results”.

MB_LOGIN_PAGE_ILLUSTRATION

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Options for displaying the illustration on the login page.

MB_LOGIN_PAGE_ILLUSTRATION_CUSTOM

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

The custom illustration for the login page.

MB_MAP_TILE_SERVER_URL

  • Type: string
  • Default: https://{s}.tile.openstreetmap.org/{z}/{x}/{y}.png
  • Configuration file name: map-tile-server-url

The map tile server URL template used in map visualizations, for example from OpenStreetMaps or MapBox.

MB_METABOT_DEFAULT_EMBEDDING_MODEL

  • Type: string
  • Default: text-embedding-ada-002

The default embeddings model to be used for metabot.

MB_METABOT_FEEDBACK_URL

  • Type: string
  • Default: https://amtix3l3qvitb2qxstaqtcoqby0monuf.lambda-url.us-east-1.on.aws/
  • Configuration file name: metabot-feedback-url

The URL to which metabot feedback is posted.

MB_METABOT_GET_PROMPT_TEMPLATES_URL

  • Type: string
  • Default: https://stkxezsr2kcnkhusi3fgcc5nqm0ttgfx.lambda-url.us-east-1.on.aws/
  • Configuration file name: metabot-get-prompt-templates-url

The URL in which metabot versioned prompt templates are stored.

MB_METABOT_PROMPT_GENERATOR_TOKEN_LIMIT

  • Type: integer
  • Default: 6000

When attempting to assemble prompts, the threshold at which prompt will no longer be appended to.

MB_NATIVE_QUERY_AUTOCOMPLETE_MATCH_STYLE

Matching style for native query editors autocomplete. Can be “substring”, “prefix”, or “off”. Larger instances can have performance issues matching using substring, so can use prefix matching, or turn autocompletions off.

MB_NESTED_FIELD_COLUMNS_VALUE_LENGTH_LIMIT

  • Type: integer
  • Default: 50000
  • Exported as: nested-field-columns-value-length-limit.

Maximum length of a JSON string before skipping it during sync for JSON unfolding. If this is set too high it could lead to slow syncs or out of memory errors.

MB_NO_DATA_ILLUSTRATION

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Options for displaying the illustration when there are no results after running a question.

MB_NO_DATA_ILLUSTRATION_CUSTOM

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

The custom illustration for when there are no results after running a question.

MB_NO_OBJECT_ILLUSTRATION

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Options for displaying the illustration when there are no results after searching.

MB_NO_OBJECT_ILLUSTRATION_CUSTOM

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

The custom illustration for when there are no results after searching.

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

  • Type: string
  • Default: null

By default “Site Url” is used in notification links, but can be overridden.

The base URL where dashboard notitification links will point to instead of the Metabase base URL. Only applicable for users who utilize interactive embedding and subscriptions.

MB_NOTIFICATION_THREAD_POOL_SIZE

  • Type: integer
  • Default: 10

The size of the thread pool used to send notifications.

MB_NUM_METABOT_CHOICES

  • Type: integer
  • Default: 1

Number of potential responses metabot will request. The first valid response is selected.

MB_OPENAI_API_KEY

The OpenAI API Key.

MB_OPENAI_MODEL

The OpenAI Model (e.g. gpt-4-turbo-preview, gpt-4, gpt-3.5-turbo).

MB_OPENAI_ORGANIZATION

The OpenAI Organization ID.

MB_PERSISTED_MODEL_REFRESH_CRON_SCHEDULE

cron syntax string to schedule refreshing persisted models.

MB_PERSISTED_MODELS_ENABLED

Allow persisting models into the source database.

MB_PREMIUM_EMBEDDING_TOKEN

Token for premium features. Go to the MetaStore to get yours!

MB_QUERY_ANALYSIS_ENABLED

Whether or not we analyze any queries at all.

MB_QUERY_CACHING_MAX_KB

The maximum size of the cache, per saved question, in kilobytes.

MB_QUERY_CACHING_MAX_TTL

The absolute maximum time to keep any cached query results, in seconds.

MB_REDIRECT_ALL_REQUESTS_TO_HTTPS

Force all traffic to use HTTPS via a redirect, if the site URL is HTTPS.

MB_REPORT_TIMEZONE

Connection timezone to use when executing queries. Defaults to system timezone.

MB_RESET_TOKEN_TTL_HOURS

  • Type: integer
  • Default: 48

Number of hours a password reset is considered valid.

MB_RETRY_INITIAL_INTERVAL

The initial retry delay in milliseconds.

MB_RETRY_MAX_ATTEMPTS

The maximum number of attempts for an event.

MB_RETRY_MAX_INTERVAL_MILLIS

The maximum delay between attempts.

MB_RETRY_MULTIPLIER

The delay multiplier between attempts.

MB_RETRY_RANDOMIZATION_FACTOR

The randomization factor of the retry delay.

MB_SAML_APPLICATION_NAME

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

This application name will be used for requests to the Identity Provider.

MB_SAML_ATTRIBUTE_EMAIL

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

  • Type: string
  • Default: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/emailaddress
  • Configuration file name: saml-attribute-email

SAML attribute for the user’s email address.

MB_SAML_ATTRIBUTE_FIRSTNAME

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

  • Type: string
  • Default: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/givenname
  • Configuration file name: saml-attribute-firstname

SAML attribute for the user’s first name.

MB_SAML_ATTRIBUTE_GROUP

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

SAML attribute for group syncing.

MB_SAML_ATTRIBUTE_LASTNAME

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

  • Type: string
  • Default: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/surname
  • Configuration file name: saml-attribute-lastname

SAML attribute for the user’s last name.

MB_SAML_ENABLED

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Is SAML authentication configured and enabled?

MB_SAML_GROUP_MAPPINGS

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

JSON containing SAML to Metabase group mappings.

MB_SAML_GROUP_SYNC

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Enable group membership synchronization with SAML.

MB_SAML_IDENTITY_PROVIDER_CERTIFICATE

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Encoded certificate for the identity provider. Depending on your IdP, you might need to download this, open it in a text editor, then copy and paste the certificates contents here.

MB_SAML_IDENTITY_PROVIDER_ISSUER

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

This is a unique identifier for the IdP. Often referred to as Entity ID or simply Issuer. Depending on your IdP, this usually looks something like http://www.example.com/141xkex604w0Q5PN724v.

MB_SAML_IDENTITY_PROVIDER_URI

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

This is the URL where your users go to log in to your identity provider. Depending on which IdP you’re using, this usually looks like https://your-org-name.example.com or https://example.com/app/my_saml_app/abc123/sso/saml.

MB_SAML_KEYSTORE_ALIAS

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Alias for the key that Metabase should use for signing SAML requests.

MB_SAML_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Password for opening the keystore.

MB_SAML_KEYSTORE_PATH

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Absolute path to the Keystore file to use for signing SAML requests.

MB_SAML_SLO_ENABLED

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Is SAML Single Log Out enabled?

MB_SAML_USER_PROVISIONING_ENABLED

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

When we enable SAML user provisioning, we automatically create a Metabase account on SAML signin for users who don’t have one.

MB_SCIM_ENABLED

Is SCIM currently enabled?

MB_SEARCH_ENGINE

  • Type: keyword
  • Default: :in-place

Which engine to use when performing search. Supported values are :in-place and :appdb.

MB_SEARCH_TYPEAHEAD_ENABLED

Enable typeahead search in the Metabase navbar?

MB_SEND_NEW_SSO_USER_ADMIN_EMAIL

Should new email notifications be sent to admins, for all new SSO users?

Value for the session cookies SameSite directive.

See Embedding Metabase in a different domain. Read more about interactive Embedding. Learn more about SameSite cookies.

MB_SESSION_COOKIES

When set, enforces the use of session cookies for all users which expire when the browser is closed.

The user login session will always expire after the amount of time defined in MAX_SESSION_AGE (by default 2 weeks). This overrides the “Remember me” checkbox when logging in. Also see the Changing session expiration documentation page.

MB_SESSION_TIMEOUT

Time before inactive users are logged out. By default, sessions last indefinitely.

Has to be in the JSON format "{"amount":120,"unit":"minutes"}" where the unit is one of “seconds”, “minutes” or “hours”.

MB_SETUP_EMBEDDING_AUTOENABLED

Indicates if embedding has enabled automatically during the setup because the user was interested in embedding.

MB_SETUP_LICENSE_ACTIVE_AT_SETUP

Indicates if at the end of the setup a valid license was active.

MB_SHOW_DATABASE_SYNCING_MODAL

Whether an introductory modal should be shown after the next database connection is added. Defaults to false if any non-default database has already finished syncing for this instance.

MB_SHOW_HOMEPAGE_DATA

Whether or not to display data on the homepage. Admins might turn this off in order to direct users to better content than raw data.

MB_SHOW_HOMEPAGE_XRAYS

Whether or not to display x-ray suggestions on the homepage. They will also be hidden if any dashboards are pinned. Admins might hide this to direct users to better content than raw data.

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Whether or not to display Metabase links outside admin settings.

MB_SHOW_METABOT

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Enables Metabot character on the home page.

MB_SHOW_STATIC_EMBED_TERMS

Check if the static embedding licensing should be hidden in the static embedding flow.

MB_SITE_LOCALE

The default language for all users across the Metabase UI, system emails, pulses, and alerts. Users can individually override this default language from their own account settings.

MB_SITE_NAME

The name used for this instance of Metabase.

MB_SITE_URL

This URL is used for things like creating links in emails, auth redirects, and in some embedding scenarios, so changing it could break functionality or get you locked out of this instance.

This URL is critical for things like SSO authentication, email links, embedding and more. Even difference with http:// vs https:// can cause problems. Make sure that the address defined is how Metabase is being accessed.

MB_SLACK_APP_TOKEN

Bot user OAuth token for connecting the Metabase Slack app. This should be used for all new Slack integrations starting in Metabase v0.42.0.

MB_SLACK_BUG_REPORT_CHANNEL

The name of the channel where bug reports should be posted.

MB_SLACK_FILES_CHANNEL

The name of the channel to which Metabase files should be initially uploaded.

MB_SOURCE_ADDRESS_HEADER

Identify the source of HTTP requests by this headers value, instead of its remote address.

MB_SQL_JDBC_FETCH_SIZE

  • Type: integer
  • Default: 500

Fetch size for result sets. We want to ensure that the jdbc ResultSet objects are not realizing the entire results in memory.

MB_SQL_PARSING_ENABLED

  • Type: boolean
  • Default: true

SQL Parsing is disabled.

MB_SSH_HEARTBEAT_INTERVAL_SEC

Controls how often the heartbeats are sent when an SSH tunnel is established (in seconds).

MB_START_OF_WEEK

This will affect things like grouping by week or filtering in GUI queries. It won’t affect most SQL queries, although it is used to set the WEEK_START session variable in Snowflake.

MB_SUBSCRIPTION_ALLOWED_DOMAINS

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Allowed email address domain(s) for new Dashboard Subscriptions and Alerts. To specify multiple domains, separate each domain with a comma, with no space in between. To allow all domains, leave the field empty. This setting doesn’t affect existing subscriptions.

MB_SURVEYS_ENABLED

  • Type: boolean
  • Default: true

Enable or disable surveys.

MB_SYNCHRONOUS_BATCH_UPDATES

Process batches updates synchronously. If true, all submit! calls will be processed immediately. Default is false.

MB_UNAGGREGATED_QUERY_ROW_LIMIT

Maximum number of rows to return specifically on :rows type queries via the API.

Must be less than 1048575, and less than the number configured in MB_AGGREGATED_QUERY_ROW_LIMIT. This environment variable also affects how many rows Metabase returns in dashboard subscription attachments. See also MB_AGGREGATED_QUERY_ROW_LIMIT.

MB_UPDATE_CHANNEL

Well notify you here when theres a new version of this type of release.

MB_UPLOADS_SETTINGS

Upload settings.

MB_USER_VISIBILITY

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.

Note: Sandboxed users will never see suggestions.

Other environment variables

The following environment variables can only be set via the environment. They cannot be set by the configuration file.

MAX_SESSION_AGE

Type: integer
Default: 20160

Session expiration, defined in minutes (default is 2 weeks), which will log out users after the defined period and require re-authentication.

Note: This setting is not an idle/inactivity timeout. If you set this to 15 minutes, your users have to login (or re-authenticate) again every 15 minutes. Use MB_SESSION_TIMEOUT to control timeout based on inactivity.

Use MB_SESSION_COOKIES to also expire sessions, when browser is closed.

Also see the Changing session expiration documentation page.

MB_APPLICATION_DB_MAX_CONNECTION_POOL_SIZE

Type: integer
Default: 15
Since: v35.0

Maximum number of connections to the Metabase application database.

Change this to a higher value if you notice that regular usage consumes all or close to all connections. When all connections are in use, Metabase might feel slow or unresponsive when clicking around the interface.

To see how many connections are being used, check the Metabase logs and look for lines that contains the following: … App DB connections: 12/15 …. In this example, 12 out of 15 available connections are being used.

See MB_JDBC_DATA_WAREHOUSE_MAX_CONNECTION_POOL_SIZE for setting maximum connections to the databases connected to Metabase.

MB_ASYNC_QUERY_THREAD_POOL_SIZE

Type: integer
Default: 50
Since: v35.0

Maximum number of async Jetty threads. If not set, then MB_JETTY_MAXTHREADS will be used, otherwise it will use the default.

MB_ATTACHMENT_TABLE_ROW_LIMIT

Type: integer
Default: 20

Limits the number of rows Metabase will display in tables sent with dashboard subscriptions and alerts. Range: 1-100. To limit the total number of rows included in the file attachment for an email dashboard subscription, use MB_UNAGGREGATED_QUERY_ROW_LIMIT.

MB_AUDIT_MAX_RETENTION_DAYS

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.
Type: integer
Default: 720 (Metabase keeps all rows)

Sets the maximum number of days Metabase preserves rows for the following application database tables:

  • query_execution
  • audit_log
  • view_log

Twice a day, Metabase will delete rows older than this threshold.

The minimum value is 30 days (Metabase will treat entered values of 1 to 29 the same as 30). If set to 0, Metabase will keep all rows.

MB_COLORIZE_LOGS

Type: boolean
Default: true

Color log lines. When set to false it will disable log line colors. This is disabled on Windows. Related to MB_EMOJI_IN_LOGS.

MB_CONFIG_FILE_PATH

Type: string
Default: config.yml

This feature requires the config-text-file feature flag on your token.

MB_CUSTOM_GEOJSON_ENABLED

Type: boolean
Default: true

Whether or not the use of custom GeoJSON is enabled.

MB_DB_AUTOMIGRATE

Type: boolean
Default: true

When set to false, Metabase will print migrations needed to be done in the application database and exit. Those migrations need to be applied manually. When true, Metabase will automatically make changes to the application database. This is not related to migrating away from H2.

MB_DB_CONNECTION_URI

Type: string
Default: null

A JDBC-style connection URI that can be used instead of most of MB_DB_* like MB_DB_HOST. Also used when certain Connection String parameters are required for the connection. The connection type requirement is the same as MB_DB_TYPE.

Examples:

jdbc:postgresql://db.example.com:5432/mydb?user=dbuser&password=dbpassword

jdbc:postgresql://db.example.com:5432/mydb?user=dbuser&password=dbpassword&ssl=true&sslfactory=org.postgresql.ssl.NonValidatingFactory

jdbc:mysql://db.example.com:3306/mydb?user=dbuser&password=dbpassword

MB_DB_DBNAME

Type: string
Default: null

The database name of the application database used with MB_DB_HOST.

MB_DB_FILE

Type: string
Default: "metabase.db"

Location of H2 database file. Should not include the .mv.db (or .h2.db) file extension. Used when MB_DB_TYPE is set to"h2".

Can also be used when migrating away from H2 to specify where the existing data should be read from.

MB_DB_HOST

Type: string
Default: null

The host name or IP address of the application database. Used when MB_DB_TYPE is different than "h2".

MB_DB_IN_MEMORY

Type: boolean
Default: null

Used for testing with MB_DB_FILE.

MB_DB_PASS

Type: string
Default: null

The password for MB_DB_HOST.

MB_DB_PORT

Type: integer
Default: null

The port for MB_DB_HOST.

MB_DB_TYPE

Type: string ("h2", "postgres", "mysql")
Default: "h2"

When "h2", the application database is loaded from MB_DB_FILE, otherwise MB_DB_HOST will be used to define application database.

MB_DB_USER

Type: string
Default: null

The username for MB_DB_HOST.

MB_DEV_ADDITIONAL_DRIVER_MANIFEST_PATHS

Type: string
Default: null

Used during development of third-party drivers. Set the value to have that plugin manifest get loaded during startup. Specify multiple plugin manifests by comma-separating them.

MB_DISABLE_SESSION_THROTTLE

Type: boolean
Default: false

When true, this will disable session throttling. Warning: It is not recommended to disable throttling, since it is a protective measure against brute-force attacks.

Use MB_SOURCE_ADDRESS_HEADER to set the IP address of the remote client from e.g. a reverse-proxy.

MB_EMOJI_IN_LOGS

Type: boolean
Default: true

Emojis on log lines. When set to false it will disable log line emojis. This is disabled on Windows. Related to MB_COLORIZE_LOGS.

MB_ENABLE_TEST_ENDPOINTS

Type: boolean
Default: null

When true, this will enable /api/testing endpoint. Warning: This should never be enabled in production system.

MB_ENABLE_XRAYS

Type: boolean
Default: true

Allow users to explore data using X-rays.

MB_ENCRYPTION_SECRET_KEY

Type: string
Default: null

When set, this will encrypt database credentials stored in the application database. Requirement: minimum 16 characters base64-encoded string.

Also see documentation page Encrypting database details at rest.

MB_JDBC_DATA_WAREHOUSE_UNRETURNED_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT_SECONDS

Type: integer
Default: 1200
Since: v47.4

Metabase’s query processor will normally kill connections when their queries time out, but in practice some connections can be severed and go undetected by Metabase, staying alive even after a query returns or times out. This environment variable tells Metabase how long to wait before killing connections if no response is received from the connection.

This variable affects connections that are severed and undetected by Metabase (that is, in situations where Metabase never receives a connection closed signal and is treating an inactive connection as active). You may want to adjust this variable’s value if your connection is unreliable or is a dynamic connections behind a SSH tunnel where the connection to the SSH tunnel host may stay active even after the connection from the SSH tunnel host to your database is severed.

Unless set otherwise, the default production value for metabase.query-processor.query-timeout-ms is used which is 1,200,000 ms (i.e. 1,200 seconds or 20 minutes).

MB_JDBC_DATA_WAREHOUSE_DEBUG_UNRETURNED_CONNECTION_STACK_TRACES

Type: boolean
Default: false
Since: v51.3

If true, log a stack trace for any connections killed due to exceeding the timeout specified in MB_JDBC_DATA_WAREHOUSE_UNRETURNED_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT_SECONDS.

In order to see the stack traces in the logs, you’ll also need to update the com.mchange log level to “INFO” or higher via a custom log4j configuration. For configuring log levels, see Metabase log configuration.

To set a timeout for how long Metabase should wait before it kills unreturned connections, see MB_JDBC_DATA_WAREHOUSE_UNRETURNED_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT_SECONDS.

MB_JETTY_ASYNC_RESPONSE_TIMEOUT

Type: integer
Default: 600000
Since: v35.0

Timeout of Jetty async threads, defined in milliseconds. The default is 10 minutes. Very few things might reach that timeout, since they return some type of data before, but things like CSV downloads might.

MB_JETTY_DAEMON

Type: boolean
Default: false

Use daemon threads.

MB_JETTY_HOST

Type: string
Default: localhost for JAR, 0.0.0.0 for Docker

Configure a host either as a host name or IP address to identify a specific network interface on which to listen. If set to "0.0.0.0", Metabase listens on all network interfaces. It will listen on the port specified in MB_JETTY_PORT.

MB_JETTY_JOIN

Type: boolean
Default: true

Blocks the thread until server ends.

MB_JETTY_MAXIDLETIME

Type: integer
Default: 200000

Maximum idle time for a connection, in milliseconds.

MB_JETTY_MAXTHREADS

Type: integer
Default: 50

Maximum number of threads.

Change this to a higher value if you notice that regular usage consumes all or close to all threads. When all threads are in use Metabase might feel slow or unresponsive when clicking around the interface.

To see how many threads are being used, check the Metabase logs and look for lines that contain the following: … Jetty threads: 45/50 …, which in this case would indicate 45 out of 50 available threads are being used.

Related MB_ASYNC_QUERY_THREAD_POOL_SIZE.

MB_JETTY_MINTHREADS

Type: integer
Default: 8

Minimum number of threads.

MB_JETTY_PORT

Type: integer
Default: 3000

Configure which port to use for HTTP. It will listen on the interface specified in MB_JETTY_HOST.

MB_JETTY_REQUEST_HEADER_SIZE

Type: integer
Default: 8192
Since: v36.0

Maximum size of a request header, in bytes. Increase this value if you are experiencing errors like “Request Header Fields Too Large”.

MB_JETTY_SSL

Type: boolean
Default: null

When set to true, will enable HTTPS with the options configured in the MB_JETTY_SSL_* variables.

Also see the Customizing Jetty web server documentation page.

MB_JETTY_SSL_CLIENT_AUTH

Type: boolean
Default: null

Configure Java SSL client authentication. When set to true, client certificates are required and verified by the certificate authority in the TrustStore.

MB_JETTY_SSL_KEYSTORE

Type: string
Default: null

Path to Java KeyStore file.

MB_JETTY_SSL_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD

Type: string
Default: null

Password for Java KeyStore file.

MB_JETTY_SSL_PORT

Type: integer
Default: null

Configure which port to use for HTTPS. It will listen on the interface specified in MB_JETTY_HOST.

MB_JETTY_SSL_TRUSTSTORE

Type: string
Default: null

Path to Java TrustStore file.

MB_JETTY_SSL_TRUSTSTORE_PASSWORD

Type: string
Default: null

Password for Java TrustStore file.

MB_LANDING_PAGE

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.
Type: string
Default: ""

Default page to show people when they log in.

MB_LOAD_ANALYTICS_CONTENT

Type: Boolean
Default: True

If you want to exclude the Metabase analytics collection, you can set MB_LOAD_ANALYTICS_CONTENT=false. Setting this environment variable to false can also come in handy when migrating environments, as it can simplify the migration process.

MB_LOAD_SAMPLE_CONTENT

Type: Boolean
Default: True

Whether to include the Sample Database in your Metabase. To exclude the Sample Database, set MB_LOAD_SAMPLE_CONTENT=false.

MB_NO_SURVEYS

Type: boolean
Default: false

Metabase will send a sentiment survey to people who create a number of questions and dashboards to gauge how well the product is doing with respect to making things easy for creators.

Metabase will only send these emails to people who have in the past 2 months:

  • Created at least 10 questions total
  • Created at least 2 SQL questions
  • Created at least 1 dashboard

If you’re whitelabeling Metabase, these survey emails will only be sent to admins for that instance who meet that criteria.

If you don’t want Metabase to send these emails, set MB_NO_SURVEYS=true.

MB_NS_TRACE

Type: string
Default: ""

Comma-separated namespaces to trace. WARNING: Could log sensitive information like database passwords.

MB_PASSWORD_COMPLEXITY

Type: string ("weak", "normal", "strong")
Default: "normal"

Enforce a password complexity rule to increase security for regular logins. This only applies to new users or users that are changing their password. Related MB_PASSWORD_LENGTH

  • weak no character constraints
  • normal at least 1 digit
  • strong minimum 8 characters w/ 2 lowercase, 2 uppercase, 1 digit, and 1 special character

MB_PASSWORD_LENGTH

Type: integer
Default: 6

Set a minimum password length to increase security for regular logins. This only applies to new users or users that are changing their password. Uses the length of MB_PASSWORD_COMPLEXITY if not set.

MB_PLUGINS_DIR

Type: string
Default: "plugins"

Path of the “plugins” directory, which is used to store the Metabase database drivers. The user who is running Metabase should have permission to write to the directory. When running the JAR, the default directory is plugins, created in the same location as the JAR file. When running Docker, the default directory is /plugins.

The location is where custom third-party drivers should be added. Then Metabase will load the driver on startup, which can be verified in the log.

MB_PREMIUM_EMBEDDING_TOKEN

Type: string
Default: null

The license token used for Pro and Enterprise to enable premium features on the Enterprise edition. It is also used for the deprecated “Premium Embedding” functionality on the OSS edition.

MB_QP_CACHE_BACKEND

Type: string
Default: "db"

Current cache backend. Dynamically rebindable primarily for test purposes.

MB_SEARCH_TYPEAHEAD_ENABLED

Type: boolean
Default: true
Since: v39.0

Show auto-suggestions when using the global search in the top navigation bar.

MB_SEND_EMAIL_ON_FIRST_LOGIN_FROM_NEW_DEVICE

Type: boolean
Default: true
Since: v39.0

Send email notification to user, when they login from a new device. Set to false to stop sending “We’ve noticed a new login on your Metabase account” emails for all users.

Also, this variable controls the geocoding service that Metabase uses to know the location from where your users logged in. Setting this variable to false also disables this reverse geocoding functionality.

MB_SEND_NEW_SSO_USER_ADMIN_EMAIL

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.
Type: boolean
Default: true

Send email notifications to users in Admin group, when a new SSO users is created on Metabase.

MB_SETUP_TOKEN

Type: string
Default: null

An UUID token used to signify that an instance has permissions to create the initial User. This is created upon the first launch of Metabase, by the first instance; once used, it is cleared out, never to be used again.

MB_SHOW_LIGHTHOUSE_ILLUSTRATION

Only available on Metabase Pro and Enterprise plans.
Type: boolean
Default: true
Since: v44.0

Display the lighthouse illustration on the home and login pages.

MB_JETTY_SKIP_SNI

Type: string
Default: "true"
Since: v48.4

Setting MB_JETTY_SKIP_SNI=true (the default setting) turns off the Server Name Indication (SNI) checks in the Jetty web server. Normally you would leave this enabled. If, however, you’re terminating the Transport Layer Security (TLS) connection on Metabase itself, and you’re getting an error like HTTP ERROR 400 Invalid SNI, consider either setting MB_JETTY_SKIP_SNI=false, or use another SSL certificate that exactly matches the domain name of the server.

MB_SOURCE_ADDRESS_HEADER

Type: string
Default: X-Forwarded-For

Identify the source of HTTP requests by this header’s value, instead of its remote address. Related to MB_DISABLE_SESSION_THROTTLE.

MB_SSL_CERTIFICATE_PUBLIC_KEY

Type: string
Default: null

Base-64 encoded public key for this sites SSL certificate. Specify this to enable HTTP Public Key Pinning. Using HPKP is no longer recommended. See http://mzl.la/1EnfqBf for more information.

Read docs for other versions of Metabase.