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Deployment
Configuration

Configuration

Environmental variables

Required

Variable Example Description
STAGE prod Stage is used for building widget js code (e.g. minification) and for separation in logging.
PC_PORTAL_BASE_URL portal.yourdomain.com (Sub)domain where you will host PrivateCaptcha portal.
PC_API_BASE_URL api.yourdomain.com (Sub)domain where CAPTCHA API (puzzles, verification etc.) will be hosted.
PC_CDN_BASE_URL cdn.yourdomain.com (Sub)domain where CDN assets will be hosted (e.g., client-side widget package, pictures, email assets etc.).
PC_ADMIN_EMAIL admin@yourdomain.com Email that will be used for admin user to login. Must be valid and functioning.
PC_EMAIL_FROM no-reply@yourdomain.com Sender address for various transactional emails (2FA auth, welcome email etc.)
PC_POSTGRES postgres://username:pass@postgres:5432/privatecaptcha Postgres connection string for backend DB. You can also specify separate values (see note below).
PC_CLICKHOUSE_HOST clickhouse Host (or IP address) where ClickHouse DB is running.
PC_CLICKHOUSE_DB privatecaptcha Database for connecting to ClickHouse.
PC_CLICKHOUSE_USER captcha Username for connecting to PC_CLICKHOUSE_DB.
PC_CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD qwerty12345 Password for PC_CLICKHOUSE_USER.
PC_USER_FINGERPRINT_KEY abcdef... HEX-encoded 64-character string, used as IV value for hashing user fingerprints.
PC_API_SALT asdf... String used as salt for creating puzzle signatures.
SMTP_ENDPOINT smtp://your.provider.com:587 Endpoint used for sending transactional email.
SMTP_USERNAME foobar Username for SMTP_ENDPOINT.
SMTP_PASSWORD qwerty12345 Password for SMTP_USERNAME.

Note

Instead of PC_POSTGRES as a connection string, you can specify PC_POSTGRES_HOST, PC_POSTGRES_DB, PC_POSTGRES_USER, PC_POSTGRES_PASSWORD separately.

Optional

Variable Example Description
PC_HOST localhost Host where to listen for HTTP connections.
PC_PORT 8080 Port where to listen for HTTP connections.
PC_LOCAL_ADDRESS localhost:9090 Local “admin” endpoint that hosts Prometheus metrics, manual maintenance jobs triggers and kubernetes liveness/readiness probes. Does not have any auth and must not be exposed publicly.
PC_RATE_LIMIT_HEADER X-Real-Ip HTTP header which will contain IP address of the connecting user. Is expected to come from CDN or proxy (e.g., nginx, caddy). If empty, righmost non-private address of X-Forwarded-For will be used.
PC_RATE_LIMIT_RPS 1.0 Leak rate per second (float) of default API rate limiter.
PC_RATE_LIMIT_BURST 20 Burst of default API rate limiter.
PC_CLICKHOUSE_ADMIN captcha_admin Separate username for ClickHouse to run migrations with. If empty, PC_CLICKHOUSE_USER will be used.
PC_CLICKHOUSE_ADMIN_PASSWORD qwerty12345 Password for PC_CLICKHOUSE_ADMIN.
PC_POSTGRES_ADMIN captcha_admin Separate username for Postgres to run migrations with. If empty, PC_POSTGRES_USER (or PC_POSTGRES) will be used.
PC_POSTGRES_ADMIN_PASSWORD qwerty12345 Password for PC_POSTGRES_ADMIN.
PC_MAINTENANCE_MODE true Boolean (1, y, true) value if server is in maintenance mode, during which communications with databases are offline, but APIs (and cache) are functional.
PC_REGISTRATION_ALLOWED true Boolean (1, y, true) value if this instance of PrivateCaptcha has registration page open.
PC_HEALTHCHECK_INTERVAL 60 Integer value that defines how frequently in seconds we perform internal health check of DB instances and http server. Defaults to 5 in prod and 60 in dev.
PC_VERBOSE true Boolean (1, y, true) to indicate verbose logging (trace level).

Note

“Default” rate limiter means the one for public APIs (/puzzle, /siteverify and some others). Various other APIs have pre-configured hardcoded limits, compiled in.

Warning

It’s not recommended to modify leak rate configuration unless you really know what you’re doing.

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