The configuration file

Depending on how The Arsse was installed, it will look for configuration in the following places:

Installation method	Default configuration file path
Arch Linux package	/etc/webapps/arsse/config.php
Debian package	/etc/arsse/config.php
Manual installation	config.php in the The Arsse’s installation directory

It is not an error for this file not to exist or to be empty: The Arsse will function with no configuration whatsoever, provided other conditions allow.

The configuration file is a PHP script which returns an associative array with keys and values for one or more settings. Any settings which are not specified in the configuration file will be set to their defaults. Invalid values will cause an error on start-up, while unknown keys are ignored. A basic configuration file might look like this:

<?php return [
    'lang'          => "en",
    'dbDriver'      => "sqlite3",
    'dbSQLite3File' => "/var/lib/arsse/arsse.db",
];

List of all settings

The config.defaults.php file included with copies of The Arsse contains an annotated listing of every configuration setting with its default value. The settings are also documented in more detail below.

General settings

lang

Type	Default
string	"en"

The default language locale, mostly used when reporting errors on the command line or in logs. Currently only "en" (English) is available.

Database settings

dbDriver

Type	Default
string	"sqlite3"

The database driver to use. The following values are understood:

• "sqlite3" for SQLite databases
• "postgresql" for PostgreSQL databases
• "mysql" for MySQL databases

It is also possible to specify the fully-qualified name of a class which implements the database driver interface. For example, specifying "JKingWeb\Arsse\Db\SQLite3\PDODriver" would use the PDO driver for SQLite 3.

dbAutoUpdate

Type	Default
boolean	true

Whether to attempt to automatically upgrade the database schema when upgrading The Arsse to a new version with schema changes.

If set to false, the database schema must be manually upgraded. Schema files can be found under sql/<backend>/#.sql; the UPGRADING file will advise when a schema upgrade is required.

dbTimeoutConnect

Type	Default
interval or null	5.0

The number of seconds to wait before returning a timeout error when connecting to a database server. The special value null waits the maximum amount of time, while 0.0 waits the minimum amount of time. The minimums are maximums for each backend are as follows:

Backend	Minimum	Maximum
SQLite 3	(does not apply)	(does not apply)
PostgreSQL	1 second	forever
MySQL	1 second	forever

Note that in practice neither PostgreSQL nor MySQL will wait indefinitely: they are still subject to PHP’s socket timeouts. Consult PostgreSQL’s documentation for details on how the timeout is interpreted by PostgreSQL.

dbTimeoutExec

Type	Default
interval	null

The number of seconds to wait before returning a timeout error when executing a database operation (i.e. computing results). The special value null waits the maximum amount of time, while 0.0 waits the minimum amount of time. The minimums are maximums for each backend are as follows:

Backend	Minimum	Maximum
SQLite 3	(does not apply)	(does not apply)
PostgreSQL	1 millisecond	forever
MySQL	1 second	forever

With MySQL this timeout only applies to read operations, whereas PostgreSQL will time out write operations as well.

dbTimeoutLock

Type	Default
interval	60.0

The number of seconds to wait before returning a timeout error when acquiring database locks. The special value null waits the maximum amount of time, while 0.0 waits the minimum amount of time. The minimums are maximums for each backend are as follows:

Backend	Minimum	Maximum
SQLite 3	0 milliseconds	at least 24 days
PostgreSQL	1 millisecond	forever
MySQL	1 second	approximately 1 year

Note that PostgreSQL counts time spent waiting for locks as part of the above execution timeout. The maximum timeout for SQLite is PHP_INT_MAX milliseconds, which on 32-bit systems is just under 25 days, and on 64-bit systems is billions of years.

Database settings specific to SQLite 3

dbSQLite3File

Type	Default
string or null	null

The full path and file name of SQLite database. The special value null evaluates to a file named "arsse.db" in the directory where The Arsse is installed.

dbSQLite3Key

Type	Default
string	""

The key used to encrypt/decrypt the SQLite database. This is only relevant if using the SQLite Encryption Extension.

Database settings specific to PostgreSQL

dbPostgreSQLHost

Type	Default
string	""

The host name, address, or socket path of the PostgreSQL database server.

Consult PostgreSQL’s documentation for more details.

dbPostgreSQLUser

Type	Default
string	"arsse"

The log-in user name for the PostgreSQL database server.

dbPostgreSQLPass

Type	Default
string	""

The log-in password for the PostgreSQL database server.

dbPostgreSQLPort

Type	Default
integer	5432

The TCP port on which to connect to the PostgreSQL database server, if connecting via TCP.

dbPostgreSQLDb

Type	Default
string	"arsse"

The name of the database used by The Arsse on the PostgreSQL database server.

dbPostgreSQLSchema

Type	Default
string	""

The name of the schema used by The Arsse on the PostgreSQL database server. When not set to the empty string, the PostgreSQL search path is modified to consist of the specified schema with a fallback to the public schema.

Consult PostgreSQL’s documentation for more details.

dbPostgreSQLService

Type	Default
string	""

A PostgreSQL service file entry to use instead of the above configuration; if using a service entry all above PostgreSQL-specific parameters except schema are ignored.

Consult PostgreSQL’s documentation for more details.

Database settings specific to MySQL

dbMySQLHost

Type	Default
string	"localhost"

The host name or address of the MySQL database server. The values "localhost" and "." are special.

Consult MySQL’s documentation for more details.

dbMySQLUser

Type	Default
string	"arsse"

The log-in user name for the MySQL database server.

dbMySQLPass

Type	Default
string	""

The log-in password for the MySQL database server.

dbMySQLPort

Type	Default
integer	3306

The TCP port on which to connect to the MySQL database server, if connecting via TCP.

dbMySQLDb

Type	Default
string	"arsse"

The name of the database used by The Arsse on the MySQL database server.

dbMySQLSocket

Type	Default
string	""

A Unix domain socket or named pipe to use for the MySQL database server when not connecting via TCP.

User management settings

userDriver

Type	Default
string	"internal"

The user management driver to use. Currently only "internal" is available, which stores user IDs and hashed passwords in the configured database.

It is also possible to specify the fully-qualified name of a class which implements the user management driver interface. For example, specifying "JKingWeb\Arsse\User\Internal\Driver" would use the internal driver.

userPreAuth

Type	Default
boolean	false

Whether users are authenticated by the Web server before requests are passed to The Arsse. If set to true The Arsse will perform no HTTP-level authentication and assume that the user ID supplied in either the REMOTE_USER CGI variable or the Authorization HTTP header-field (if Basic authentication was used) is authentic.

For synchronization protocols which implement their own authentication (such as Tiny Tiny RSS), this setting may or may not affect how protocol-level authentication is handled; consult the section on The Arsse’s supported protocols for more information.

If the user has not previously logged in, an entry is created for them in the database automatically. If the Web server uses Basic HTTP authentication and passes along the Authorization field, a hash of the user’s password will also be stored in The Arsse’s database.

userHTTPAuthRequired

Type	Default
boolean	false

Whether to require successful HTTP authentication before processing API-level authentication, for protocol which implement their own authentication.

userSessionEnforced

Type	Default
boolean	true

Whether invalid or expired API session tokens should prevent logging in when HTTP authentication is used, for protocol which implement their own authentication.

userSessionTimeout

Type	Default
interval	"PT24H"

The period of inactivity after which log-in sessions should be considered invalid. Session timeouts should not be made too long, to guard against session hijacking.

userSessionLifetime

Type	Default
interval	"P7D"

The maximum lifetime of log-in sessions regardless of recent activity. Session lifetimes should not be made too long, to guard against session hijacking.

userTempPasswordLength

Type	Default
integer	20

The desired length in characters of randomly-generated user passwords. When adding users, omitting a desired password generates a random one; this setting controls the length of these passwords.

Newsfeed fetching service settings

serviceDriver

Type	Default
string	"subprocess"

The newsfeed fetching service driver to use. The following values are understood:

• "serial": Fetches newsfeeds and processed them one at a time. This is the slowest method, but is simple and reliable.
• "subprocess": Fetches and processes multiple newsfeeds concurrently by starting a separate process for each newsfeed using PHP’s popen function. This uses more memory and processing power, but takes less total time.

It is also possible to specify the fully-qualified name of a class which implements the service driver interface. For example, specifying "JKingWeb\Arsse\Service\Serial\Driver" would use the serial driver.

serviceFrequency

Type	Default
interval	"PT2M"

The interval the newsfeed fetching service observes between checks for new articles. Note that requests to foreign servers are not necessarily made at this frequency: each newsfeed is assigned its own time at which to be next retrieved. This setting instead defines the length of time the fetching service will sleep between periods of activity.

Consult “How Often Newsfeeds Are Fetched” for details on newsfeed update frequency.

serviceQueueWidth

Type	Default
integer	5

The maximum number of concurrent newsfeed updates to perform, if a concurrent service driver is used.

fetchTimeout

Type	Default
interval	10.0

The maximum number of seconds to wait for data when fetching newsfeeds from foreign servers.

fetchSizeLimit

Type	Default
integer	2 * 1024 * 1024

The maximum size, in bytes, of data to accept when fetching a newsfeed. Newsfeeds larger than this will be rejected to guard against denial-of-servioce attacks.

The default value is equal to two megabytes.

fetchEnableScraping

Type	Default
boolean	true

Whether to allow the possibility of fetching full article contents from an article’s source, if a newsfeed only provides excerpts. Whether fetching will actually happen is governed by a per-newsfeed toggle (defaulting to false) which currently can only be changed via the Miniflux protocol.

fetchUserAgentString

Type	Default
string or null	null

The user agent The Arsse will identify as when fetching newsfeeds. The special value null will use an identifier similar to the following:

Arsse/0.6.0 (Linux 4.15.0; x86_64; https://thearsse.com/)

Housekeeping settings

purgeFeeds

Type	Default
interval or null	"PT24H"

How long to keep a newsfeed and its articles in the database after all its subscriptions have been deleted. Specifying null will retain unsubscribed newsfeeds forever, whereas an interval evaluating to zero (e.g. "PT0S") will delete them immediately.

Note that articles of orphaned newsfeeds are still subject to the purgeArticleUnread threshold below.

purgeArticlesRead

Type	Default
interval or null	"P7D"

How long to keep a an article in the database after all users subscribed to its newsfeed have read it. Specifying null will retain articles up to the purgeArticlesUnread threshold below, whereas an interval evaluating to zero (e.g. "PT0S") will delete them immediately.

If an article is starred by any user, it is retained indefinitely regardless of this setting.

This setting also governs when an article is hidden from a user after being read by that user, regardless of its actual presence in the database.

purgeArticlesUnread

Type	Default
interval or null	"P21D"

How long to keep a an article in the database regardless of whether any users have read it. Specifying null will retain articles forever, whereas an interval evaluating to zero (e.g. "PT0S") will delete them immediately.

If an article is starred by any user, it is retained indefinitely regardless of this setting.

Obsolete settings

dbSQLite3Timeout

Type	Historical Default
interval	60.0

This setting has been replaced by dbTimeoutLock.

The number of seconds for SQLite to wait before returning a timeout error when trying to acquire a write lock on the database file. Setting this to a low value may cause operations to fail with an error.

Consult SQLite’s documentation for more details.