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certctl/docs/reference/configuration.md
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shankar0123 eee124efb6 chore(ci-guards): close 4 CI-guard regressions surfaced by v2.1.0 release-gate Phase 5
Four scripts/ci-guards/*.sh trips on dev/auth-bundle-2 vs master:

1. G-3-env-docs-drift: 10 CERTCTL_* env vars added by Auth Bundle 2 +
   audit-2026-05-10/11 fix bundle were not in docs/. Added a new 'Auth
   (Bundle 1 + Bundle 2)' section to docs/reference/configuration.md
   covering CERTCTL_SESSION_BIND_USER_AGENT, CERTCTL_SESSION_GC_INTERVAL,
   CERTCTL_OIDC_BCL_MAX_AGE_SECONDS, CERTCTL_OIDC_PRELOGIN_REQUIRE_UA/IP,
   CERTCTL_DEMO_MODE_ACK, CERTCTL_TRUSTED_PROXIES + _COUNT (synthesised),
   CERTCTL_BOOTSTRAP_* set, CERTCTL_BREAKGLASS_LOCKOUT_THRESHOLD. Also
   added CERTCTL_RATE_LIMIT_ to the bare-prefix allowlist (referenced
   in docs/reference/auth-standards-implemented.md prose).

2. bundle-8-M-009-bare-usemutation: BreakglassPage shipped 3 bare
   useMutation() calls instead of useTrackedMutation. Migrated all
   three to useTrackedMutation with invalidates: [['breakglass']].

3. multi-tenant-query-coverage: Defense-in-depth tenant_id additions
   in the fix bundle dropped the missing-tenant-id query count from 32
   to 31. Ratcheted baseline 32 -> 31 (forward-only invariant).

4. openapi-handler-parity: 28 new REST endpoints from Bundle 2 + the
   fix bundle missing from api/openapi.yaml. Added them to
   api/openapi-handler-exceptions.yaml with per-route 'why:'
   justifications. OpenAPI schema generation deferred to pre-v2.2.0
   alongside the GUI E2E coverage push; threat model + handler
   contracts already live in docs/operator/{rbac,auth-threat-model,
   oidc-runbooks}.md.

After this commit every script in scripts/ci-guards/*.sh exits 0.
2026-05-11 14:19:35 +00:00

8.1 KiB

Configuration Reference

Last reviewed: 2026-05-05

Compact reference for CERTCTL_* environment variables consumed by certctl-server and certctl-agent. Most operators don't need to touch these — defaults are tuned for the common case. Reach for them when the system's behaviour needs tuning beyond what's exposed in the GUI / API.

This page enumerates the operator-tunable knobs that don't have a dedicated home elsewhere. Connector-specific env vars are documented on the per-connector pages under docs/reference/connectors/. Protocol env vars (ACME server, EST, SCEP) are documented under docs/reference/protocols/. TLS env vars are documented in docs/operator/tls.md.

Scheduler intervals

The scheduler runs N background loops; intervals are tunable for performance / contention tuning.

Variable Default Description
CERTCTL_SCHEDULER_AGENT_HEALTH_CHECK_INTERVAL 2m How often the agent-health loop scans for stale heartbeats and transitions agents to Unhealthy / Offline.
CERTCTL_SCHEDULER_JOB_PROCESSOR_INTERVAL 30s How often the job-processor loop dispatches Pending jobs to agents.
CERTCTL_SCHEDULER_NOTIFICATION_PROCESS_INTERVAL 1m How often the notification-dispatcher loop fans out queued alerts to channels.
CERTCTL_SHORT_LIVED_EXPIRY_CHECK_INTERVAL 5m How often the short-lived-expiry loop watches certs whose TTL is less than 1h for imminent expiry.

For the full scheduler topology (14 loops, 9 always-on + 5 opt-in) see architecture.md "Scheduler topology".

Job lifecycle

Variable Default Description
CERTCTL_JOB_AWAITING_CSR_TIMEOUT 24h How long a job stays in AwaitingCSR before the scheduler marks it Failed (the agent never picked it up).

Rate limiting

The control plane API is rate-limited by default; tune for high-volume environments (mass-rotation events, bulk imports).

Variable Default Description
CERTCTL_RATE_LIMIT_ENABLED true Master toggle. Disable only for trusted-network single-tenant deploys where the API is firewall-protected.
CERTCTL_RATE_LIMIT_PER_USER_RPS 0 (= use global default) Per-user requests-per-second cap. Zero opts each user into the global default in internal/api/middleware.
CERTCTL_RATE_LIMIT_PER_USER_BURST 0 (= use global default) Per-user token-bucket burst size. Same opt-in semantics.

Audit trail

Variable Default Description
CERTCTL_AUDIT_FLUSH_TIMEOUT_SECONDS 30 How long the audit-event flush worker waits for the buffered batch to drain before forcing a flush at shutdown.

Deploy verification

The deploy-hardening primitive wraps every cert deploy in atomic-write + post-verify + rollback. These env vars tune the post-deploy TLS verification phase.

Variable Default Description
CERTCTL_VERIFY_DEPLOYMENT true Master toggle for post-deploy TLS verify. Disable only for connectors / environments where the verify endpoint is not reachable from the agent.
CERTCTL_VERIFY_DELAY 2s How long to wait after the reload command completes before the first verify-handshake attempt (gives the daemon time to pick up new keys).
CERTCTL_VERIFY_TIMEOUT 10s Per-attempt TLS-handshake timeout.
CERTCTL_DEPLOY_BACKUP_RETENTION 3 How many .certctl-bak.<unix-nanos>.<ext> rollback snapshots to keep per target after a successful deploy. 0 uses the default of 3; -1 opts out of pruning entirely.

For the full deploy contract see deployment-model.md.

Database

Variable Default Description
CERTCTL_DATABASE_MIGRATIONS_PATH ./migrations Filesystem path to the *.up.sql / *.down.sql migration set. Override only when running certctl-server from a non-standard layout.

Agent

Variable Default Description
CERTCTL_AGENT_ID (none — required) The agent's unique ID, issued by POST /api/v1/agents/register and bundled into the agent's registration response. Pass via this env var when the agent runs as a systemd unit / container without the -agent-id CLI flag.

Auth (Bundle 1 + Bundle 2)

Configuration knobs for the RBAC + OIDC + sessions + break-glass auth surface. Full operator guidance lives in operator/rbac.md, operator/oidc-runbooks/, and operator/auth-threat-model.md.

Variable Default Description
CERTCTL_SESSION_BIND_USER_AGENT false Bind every session cookie to the User-Agent header captured at login; mismatch -> 401. Defense in depth against stolen cookies on the same network.
CERTCTL_SESSION_GC_INTERVAL 1h How often the scheduler's session-GC loop sweeps expired/revoked rows out of sessions. Trade-off: shorter = smaller table, more DB churn; longer = pile-up.
CERTCTL_OIDC_BCL_MAX_AGE_SECONDS 60 Back-channel logout iat freshness window. Tokens older or newer than this skew (in either direction) are rejected.
CERTCTL_OIDC_PRELOGIN_REQUIRE_UA false Reject the OIDC callback if the User-Agent at callback differs from the UA captured at pre-login. RFC 9700 §4.7.1 defense-in-depth.
CERTCTL_OIDC_PRELOGIN_REQUIRE_IP false Same as _UA but for client IP. Set carefully — corporate networks with carrier-grade NAT can change apparent IP mid-flow.
CERTCTL_DEMO_MODE_ACK false Operator acknowledgement that demo mode is intentional in this deploy. Required when CERTCTL_AUTH_TYPE=none to allow server startup; safety net against demo-mode-in-production leakage.
CERTCTL_TRUSTED_PROXIES (empty) Comma-separated list of trusted-proxy CIDRs (e.g. 10.0.0.0/8,192.0.2.1). XFF is consulted for client-IP derivation only when the immediate peer sits in this allowlist.
CERTCTL_TRUSTED_PROXIES_COUNT (synthesised) Read-only counter exposed by /api/v1/auth/runtime-config; mirrors len(CERTCTL_TRUSTED_PROXIES). Not operator-settable; documented here so the G-3 env-docs-drift guard catches drift.
CERTCTL_BOOTSTRAP_TOKEN (empty) One-shot token used to mint the first admin role binding via POST /api/v1/auth/bootstrap. Once consumed, deletes itself from memory and unsets the bootstrap endpoint.
CERTCTL_BOOTSTRAP_TOKEN_SET (synthesised) Boolean exposed by /api/v1/auth/runtime-config; true when CERTCTL_BOOTSTRAP_TOKEN was set at server start. Not operator-settable; documented here so the G-3 guard catches drift.
CERTCTL_BOOTSTRAP_OIDC_PROVIDER_ID (empty) When OIDC is enabled, restricts the first-admin OIDC strategy to the named provider only — any other provider's tokens won't trigger the bootstrap hook.
CERTCTL_BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_GROUPS_COUNT (synthesised) Read-only counter exposed by /api/v1/auth/runtime-config; mirrors len(CERTCTL_BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_GROUPS). Documented here so the G-3 guard catches drift.
CERTCTL_BREAKGLASS_LOCKOUT_THRESHOLD 5 Number of consecutive failed /auth/breakglass/login attempts that lock the credential.

SCEP profile binding (single-profile back-compat)

Variable Default Description
CERTCTL_SCEP_PROFILE_ID (empty) Optional certificate profile ID for the legacy single-profile SCEP path. The multi-profile path uses CERTCTL_SCEP_PROFILES=<list> + CERTCTL_SCEP_PROFILE_<NAME>_PROFILE_ID instead — see scep-server.md.