You can change many important CKAN settings in the CKAN config file. This is the file called std.ini
that you first encountered in create-admin-user
. It is usually located at /etc/ckan/std/std.ini
.
The file is well-documented, but we recommend reading this section in full to learn about the CKAN config options available to you.
Note
After editing this file, you will need to restart Apache for the changes to take effect.
Note
The CKAN config file also includes general Pylons options. All CKAN-specific settings are in the [app:main] section.
Example:
sqlalchemy.url = postgres://tester:pass@localhost/ckantest3
This defines the database that CKAN is to use. The format is:
sqlalchemy.url = postgres://USERNAME:PASSWORD@HOST/DBNAME
Example:
ckan.site_title = Open Data Scotland
Default value: CKAN
This sets the name of the site, as displayed in the CKAN web interface.
Example:
ckan.site_description = The easy way to get, use and share data
Default value: (none)
This is for a description, or tag line for the site, as displayed in the header of the CKAN web interface.
Example:
ckan.site_intro_text = Nice introductory paragraph about CKAN or the site in general.
Default value: (none)
This is for an introductory text used in the default template's index page.
Example:
ckan.site_logo = /images/ckan_logo_fullname_long.png
Default value: (none)
This sets the logo used in the title bar.
Example:
ckan.site_about = A _community-driven_ catalogue of _open data_ for the Greenfield area.
Default value:
<p>CKAN is the world’s leading open-source data portal platform.</p>
<p>CKAN is a complete out-of-the-box software solution that makes data
accessible and usable – by providing tools to streamline publishing, sharing,
finding and using data (including storage of data and provision of robust data
APIs). CKAN is aimed at data publishers (national and regional governments,
companies and organizations) wanting to make their data open and available.</p>
<p>CKAN is used by governments and user groups worldwide and powers a variety
of official and community data portals including portals for local, national
and international government, such as the UK’s <a href="http://data.gov.uk">data.gov.uk</a>
and the European Union’s <a href="http://publicdata.eu/">publicdata.eu</a>,
the Brazilian <a href="http://dados.gov.br/">dados.gov.br</a>, Dutch and
Netherland government portals, as well as city and municipal sites in the US,
UK, Argentina, Finland and elsewhere.</p>
<p>CKAN: <a href="http://ckan.org/">http://ckan.org/</a><br />
CKAN Tour: <a href="http://ckan.org/tour/">http://ckan.org/tour/</a><br />
Features overview: <a href="http://ckan.org/features/">http://ckan.org/features/</a></p>
Format tips:
- multiline strings can be used by indenting following lines
- the format is Markdown
Note
Whilst the default text is translated into many languages (switchable in the page footer), the text in this configuration option will not be translatable. For this reason, it's better to overload the snippet in home/snippets/about_text.html
. For more information, see theming
.
Example:
ckan.main_css = /base/css/my-custom.css
Default value: /base/css/main.css
With this option, instead of using the default main.css, you can use your own.
Example:
ckan.favicon = http://okfn.org/wp-content/themes/okfn-master-wordpress-theme/images/favicon.ico
Default value: /images/icons/ckan.ico
This sets the site's favicon. This icon is usually displayed by the browser in the tab heading and bookmark.
Example:
ckan.datasets_per_page = 10
Default value: 20
This controls the pagination of the dataset search results page. This is the maximum number of datasets viewed per page of results.
Example:
package_hide_extras = my_private_field other_field
Default value: (empty)
This sets a space-separated list of extra field key values which will not be shown on the dataset read page.
Warning
While this is useful to e.g. create internal notes, it is not a security measure. The keys will still be available via the API and in revision diffs.
ckan.dataset.show_apps_ideas:
ckan.dataset.show_apps_ideas = false
Default value: true
When set to false, or no, this setting will hide the 'Apps, Ideas, etc' tab on the package read page. If the value is not set, or is set to true or yes, then the tab will shown.
Example:
ckan.activity_list_limit = 31
Default value: infinite
This controls the number of activities to show in the Activity Stream. By default, it shows everything.
- Example::
ckan.preview.direct = png jpg gif
Default value: png jpg gif
Defines the resource formats which should be embedded directly in an img tag when previewing them.
- Example::
ckan.preview.loadable = html htm rdf+xml owl+xml xml n3 n-triples turtle plain atom rss txt
Default value: html htm rdf+xml owl+xml xml n3 n-triples turtle plain atom rss txt
Defines the resource formats which should be loaded directly in an iframe tag when previewing them.
Example:
ckan.dumps_url = http://ckan.net/dump/
ckan.dumps_format = CSV/JSON
If there is a page which allows you to download a dump of the entire catalogue then specify the URL and the format here, so that it can be advertised in the web interface. dumps_format
is just a string for display.
For more information on using dumpfiles, see database-dumps
.
- Example::
ckan.recaptcha.publickey = 6Lc...-KLc ckan.recaptcha.privatekey = 6Lc...-jP
Setting both these options according to an established Recaptcha account adds captcha to the user registration form. This has been effective at preventing bots registering users and creating spam packages.
To get a Recaptcha account, sign up at: http://www.google.com/recaptcha
Example:
ckan.feeds.author_name = Michael Jackson
Default value: (none)
This controls the feed author's name. If unspecified, it'll use ckan.site_id.
Example:
ckan.feeds.author_link = http://okfn.org
Default value: (none)
This controls the feed author's link. If unspecified, it'll use ckan.site_url.
Example:
ckan.feeds.authority_name = http://okfn.org
Default value: (none)
The domain name or email address of the default publisher of the feeds and elements. If unspecified, it'll use ckan.site_url.
Example:
ckan.feeds.date = 2012-03-22
Default value: (none)
A string representing the default date on which the authority_name is owned by the publisher of the feed.
Example:
ckan.gravatar_default = monsterid
Default value: identicon
This controls the default gravatar avatar, in case the user has none.
Example:
ckan.legacy_templates = True
Default value: False
This controls if the legacy genshi templates are used.
Note
This is only for legacy code, and shouldn't be used anymore.
- Example::
ckan.featured_groups = group_one group_two
Default Value: (empty)
Defines a list of group names or group ids. This setting is used to display groups and datasets from each group on the home page in the default templates (2 groups and 2 datasets for each group are displayed).
single: openid_enabled
Example:
openid_enabled = False
Default value: True
CKAN operates a delegated authentication model based on OpenID.
Setting this option to False turns off OpenID for login.
Example:
ckan.activity_streams_enabled = False
Default value: True
Turns on and off the activity streams used to track changes on datasets, groups, users, etc
Example:
ckan.activity_streams_email_notifications = False
Default value: False
Turns on and off the activity streams' email notifications. You'd also need to setup a cron job to send the emails. For more information, visit email-notifications
.
Example:
ckan.locale_default = de
Default value: en
(English)
Use this to specify the locale (language of the text) displayed in the CKAN Web UI. This requires a suitable mo file installed for the locale in the ckan/i18n. For more information on internationalization, see i18n
. If you don't specify a default locale, then it will default to the first locale offered, which is by default English (alter that with ckan.locales_offered and ckan.locales_filtered_out.
Example:
ckan.locales_offered = en de fr
Default value: (none)
By default, all locales found in the ckan/i18n
directory will be offered to the user. To only offer a subset of these, list them under this option. The ordering of the locales is preserved when offered to the user.
Example:
ckan.locales_filtered_out = pl ru
Default value: (none)
If you want to not offer particular locales to the user, then list them here to have them removed from the options.
Example:
ckan.locale_order = fr de
Default value: (none)
If you want to specify the ordering of all or some of the locales as they are offered to the user, then specify them here in the required order. Any locales that are available but not specified in this option, will still be offered at the end of the list.
Example:
ckan.i18n_directory = /opt/locales/i18n/
Default value: (none)
By default, the locales are searched for in the ckan/i18n
directory. Use this option if you want to use another folder.
Example:
ckan.root_path = /my/custom/path/{{LANG}}/foo
Default value: (none)
By default, the URLs are formatted as /some/url
, when using the default locale, or /de/some/url
when using the "de" locale, for example. This lets you change this. You can use any path that you want, adding {{LANG}}
where you want the locale code to go.
Example:
ckan.storage.bucket = ckan
Default value: None
This setting will change the bucket name for the uploaded files.
Example:
ckan.storage.key_prefix = ckan-file/
Default value: file/
This setting will change the prefix for the uploaded files.
Example:
ckan.storage.max_content_length = 500000
Default value: 50000000
This defines the maximum content size, in bytes, for uploads.
Example:
ofs.storage_dir = /data/uploads/
Default value: None
Use this to specify where uploaded files should be stored, and also to turn on the handling of file storage. The folder should exist, and will automatically be turned into a valid pairtree repository if it is not already.
Example:
ckan.cache_enabled = True
Default value: None
Controls if we're caching CKAN's static files, if it's serving them.
Example:
ckan.static_max_age = 2592000
Default value: 3600
Controls CKAN static files' cache max age, if we're serving and caching them.
HTML content to be inserted just before </head>
tag (e.g. extra stylesheet)
Example:
ckan.template_head_end = <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://mysite.org/css/custom.css" type="text/css">
You can also have multiline strings. Just indent following lines. e.g.:
ckan.template_head_end =
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/extra1.css" type="text/css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/extra2.css" type="text/css">
Note
This is only for legacy code, and shouldn't be used anymore.
HTML content to be inserted just before </body>
tag (e.g. Google Analytics code).
Note
you can have multiline strings (just indent following lines)
Example (showing insertion of Google Analytics code):
ckan.template_footer_end = <!-- Google Analytics -->
<script src='http://www.google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("XXXXXXXXX");
pageTracker._setDomainName(".ckan.net");
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}
</script>
<!-- /Google Analytics -->
Note
This is only for legacy code, and shouldn't be used anymore.
Example:
extra_template_paths = /home/okfn/brazil_ckan_config/templates
To customise the display of CKAN you can supply replacements for the Genshi template files. Use this option to specify where CKAN should look for additional templates, before reverting to the ckan/templates
folder. You can supply more than one folder, separating the paths with a comma (,).
For more information on theming, see theming
.
Note
This is only for legacy code, and shouldn't be used anymore.
Example:
extra_public_paths = /home/okfn/brazil_ckan_config/public
To customise the display of CKAN you can supply replacements for static files such as HTML, CSS, script and PNG files. Use this option to specify where CKAN should look for additional files, before reverting to the ckan/public
folder. You can supply more than one folder, separating the paths with a comma (,).
For more information on theming, see theming
.
Note
This is only for legacy code, and shouldn't be used anymore.
Example:
package_form = ca
Default value: standard
This sets the name of the Formalchemy form to use when editing a dataset.
Note
This setting only applies to the deprecated Formalchemy forms. For enabling forms defined with a Navl schema, see forms
.
The value for this setting can be a Formalchemy form defined in the core CKAN code or in another setuputils-managed python module. The only requirement is that the setup.py
file has an entry point for the form defined in the ckan.forms
section.
For more information on forms, see forms
.
Example:
package_new_return_url = http://datadotgc.ca/new_dataset_complete?name=<NAME>
package_edit_return_url = http://datadotgc.ca/dataset/<NAME>
If integrating the Edit Dataset and New Dataset forms into a third-party interface, setting these options allows you to set the return address. When the user has completed the form and presses 'commit', the user is redirected to the URL specified.
The <NAME>
string is replaced with the name of the dataset edited. Full details of this process are given in form-integration
.
A url pointing to a JSON file containing a list of licence objects. This list determines the licences offered by the system to users, for example when creating or editing a dataset.
This is entirely optional - by default, the system will use an internal cached version of the CKAN list of licences available from the http://licenses.opendefinition.org/licenses/groups/ckan.json.
More details about the license objects - including the licence format and some example licence lists - can be found at the Open Licenses Service.
Examples:
licenses_group_url = file:///path/to/my/local/json-list-of-licenses.json
licenses_group_url = http://licenses.opendefinition.org/licenses/groups/od.json
Example:
carrot_messaging_library = pyamqplib
This is the messaging library backend to use. Options:
* ``pyamqplib`` - AMQP (e.g. for RabbitMQ)
* ``pika`` - alternative AMQP
* ``stomp`` - python-stomp
* ``queue`` - native Python Queue (default) - NB this doesn't work inter-process
See the Carrot documentation for details.
Example:
amqp_hostname = localhost
amqp_port = 5672
amqp_user_id = guest
amqp_password = guest
These are the setup parameters for AMQP messaging. These only apply if the messaging library has been set to use AMQP (see carrot_messaging_library). The values given above are the default values.
Example:
ckan.site_id = my_ckan_instance
CKAN uses Solr to index and search packages. The search index is linked to the value of the ckan.site_id
, so if you have more than one CKAN instance using the same solr_url, they will each have a separate search index as long as their ckan.site_id
values are different. If you are only running a single CKAN instance then this can be ignored.
Note, if you change this value, you need to rebuild the search index.
Example:
ckan.simple_search = true
Default value: false
Switching this on tells CKAN search functionality to just query the database, (rather than using Solr). In this setup, search is crude and limited, e.g. no full-text search, no faceting, etc. However, this might be very useful for getting up and running quickly with CKAN.
Example:
solr_url = http://solr.okfn.org:8983/solr/ckan-schema-2.0
Default value: http://solr.okfn.org:8983/solr
This configures the Solr server used for search. The Solr schema found at that URL must be one of the ones in ckan/config/solr
(generally the most recent one). A check of the schema version number occurs when CKAN starts.
Optionally, solr_user
and solr_password
can also be configured to specify HTTP Basic authentication details for all Solr requests.
Note, if you change this value, you need to rebuild the search index.
Example:
ckan.search.automatic_indexing = 1
Make all changes immediately available via the search after editing or creating a dataset. Default is true. If for some reason you need the indexing to occur asynchronously, set this option to 0.
Note, this is equivalent to explicitly load the synchronous_search plugin.
Example:
ckan.search.solr_commit = false
Default value: true
Make ckan commit changes solr after every dataset update change. Turn this to false if on solr 4.0 and you have automatic (soft)commits enabled to improve dataset update/create speed (however there may be a slight delay before dataset gets seen in results).
Example:
ckan.search.show_all_types = true
Default value: false
Controls whether the default search page (/dataset
) should show only standard datasets or also custom dataset types.
Example:
search.facet.limits = 100
Default value: 50
Sets the default number of searched facets returned in a query.
Example:
ckan.extra_resource_fields = alt_url
Default value: None
List of the extra resource fields that would be used when searching.
Example:
ckan.site_url = http://scotdata.ckan.net
Default value: (none)
The primary URL used by this site. Used in the API to provide datasets with links to themselves in the web UI.
Example:
ckan.api_url = http://scotdata.ckan.net/api
Default value: /api
The URL that resolves to the CKAN API part of the site. This is useful if the API is hosted on a different domain, for example when a third-party site uses the forms API.
Example:
apikey_header_name = API-KEY
Default value: X-CKAN-API-Key
& Authorization
This allows another http header to be used to provide the CKAN API key. This is useful if network infrastructure block the Authorization header and X-CKAN-API-Key
is not suitable.
Example:
email_to = you@yourdomain.com
Default value: None
This controls where the error messages will be sent to.
Example:
ckan.cache_expires = 2592000
Default value: ''
This sets Cache-Control
header's max-age value.
Example:
ckan.page_cache_enable = True
Default value: ''
This enables the page caching.
Example:
moderated = True
Default value: (none)
This controls if new datasets will require moderation approval before going public.
Example:
ckan.tracking_enabled = True
Default value: False
This controls if CKAN will track the site usage.
Example:
error_email_from = paste@localhost
Default value: None
This controls from which email the error messages will come from.
Example:
debug = False
Default value: False
This enables Pylons' interactive debugging tool, makes Fanstatic serve unminified JS and CSS files, and enables CKAN templates' debugging features.
Warning
THIS SETTING MUST BE SET TO FALSE ON A PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT. Debug mode will enable the interactive debugging tool, allowing ANYONE to execute malicious code after an exception is raised.
Example:
ckan.debug_supress_header = False
Default value: False
This configs if the debug information showing the controller and action receiving the request being is shown in the header.
Note
This info only shows if debug is set to True.
Example:
ckan.plugins = disqus datapreview googleanalytics follower
Specify which CKAN extensions are to be enabled.
Warning
If you specify an extension but have not installed the code, CKAN will not start.
Format as a space-separated list of the extension names. The extension name is the key in the [ckan.plugins] section of the extension's setup.py
. For more information on extensions, see extensions
.
Example:
ckan.datastore.enabled = True
Default value: False
Controls if the Data API link will appear in Dataset's Resource page.
Note
This setting only applies to the legacy templates.
Example:
ckanext.stats.cache_enabled = True
Default value: True
This controls if we'll use the 1 day cache for stats.
Example:
ckan.log_dir = /var/log/ckan/
This is the directory to which CKAN cron scripts (if there are any installed) should write log files.
Note
This setting is nothing to do with the main CKAN log file, whose filepath is set in the [handler_file]
args.
Example:
ckan.dump_dir = /var/lib/ckan/dump/
This is the directory to which JSON or CSV dumps of the database are to be written, assuming a script has been installed to do this.
Note
It is usual to set up the Apache config to serve this directory.
Example:
ckan.backup_dir = /var/backups/ckan/
This is a directory where SQL database backups are to be written, assuming a script has been installed to do this.