lemmy/docs/src/administration/configuration.md

# Configuration

The configuration is based on the file [defaults.hjson](https://yerbamate.ml/LemmyNet/lemmy/src/branch/main/config/defaults.hjson). This file also contains documentation for all the available options. To override the defaults, you can copy the options you want to change into your local `config.hjson` file.

The `defaults.hjson` and `config.hjson` files are located at `config/defaults.hjson` and`config/config.hjson`, respectively. To change these default locations, you can set these two environment variables:

- LEMMY_CONFIG_LOCATION # config.hjson
- LEMMY_CONFIG_DEFAULTS_LOCATION # defaults.hjson

Additionally, you can override any config files with environment variables. These have the same name as the config options, and are prefixed with `LEMMY_`. For example, you can override the `database.password` with `LEMMY_DATABASE__POOL_SIZE=10`.

An additional option `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:

```bash
cd server
./db-init.sh
```