Warp/docs/configuration.md

Configuration

Warp reads one YAML file. Every setting can also come from the environment, and the environment wins. With no file at all the defaults plus WARP_* variables are used, which is how the container image runs.

Where the file comes from, in order:

1. --config <path>
2. $WARP_CONFIG
3. ./warp.yaml, if it exists
4. nothing — defaults and environment only

An unknown field is a fatal error. A typo in a security-relevant setting must not be ignored.

List-valued variables are comma-separated. A single - clears a list: WARP_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS=-.

Settings

YAML	Environment	Default	Notes
global.server_name	WARP_SERVER_NAME	—	Required. Part of every ID; cannot be changed later.
global.private_key	WARP_PRIVATE_KEY	./keys/signing.key	Written by warp generate-keys.
global.well_known.client_base_url	WARP_WELL_KNOWN_CLIENT_BASE_URL	https://<server_name>	Advertised to clients.
global.well_known.identity_server_base_url	WARP_WELL_KNOWN_IDENTITY_SERVER_BASE_URL	empty	Omitted from the document when empty.
global.well_known.server_address	WARP_WELL_KNOWN_SERVER_ADDRESS	empty	host:port for other homeservers. Empty = no delegation, other servers fall back to SRV/A.
listen.address	WARP_LISTEN_ADDRESS	:8008
listen.read_header_timeout	WARP_READ_HEADER_TIMEOUT	10s
listen.read_timeout	WARP_READ_TIMEOUT	60s
listen.write_timeout	WARP_WRITE_TIMEOUT	120s	Must stay above sync.long_poll_timeout, or a blocked /sync is cut off before it can answer.
listen.idle_timeout	WARP_IDLE_TIMEOUT	120s
listen.max_header_bytes	WARP_MAX_HEADER_BYTES	1048576
listen.shutdown_timeout	WARP_SHUTDOWN_TIMEOUT	30s	Grace period for in-flight requests.
listen.federation_address	WARP_LISTEN_FEDERATION_ADDRESS	empty	A second listener serving the same API over TLS, usually :8448. Empty = none; see Federation over TLS.
listen.tls_cert_file	WARP_TLS_CERT_FILE	empty	PEM certificate chain for the federation listener. Required with it.
listen.tls_key_file	WARP_TLS_KEY_FILE	empty	PEM key for the federation listener. Required with it.
database.driver	WARP_DB_DRIVER	sqlite	sqlite, postgres, pocketbase (not implemented).
database.connection_string	WARP_DB_CONNECTION_STRING	SQLite file in the working directory
database.max_open_conns	WARP_DB_MAX_OPEN_CONNS	10	Ignored by SQLite: writes are serialised onto one connection.
database.max_idle_conns	WARP_DB_MAX_IDLE_CONNS	5
database.conn_max_lifetime	WARP_DB_CONN_MAX_LIFETIME	1h
database.auto_migrate	WARP_DB_AUTO_MIGRATE	true	false makes startup fail while migrations are pending.
client_api.cors_allowed_origins	WARP_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS	["*"]	The spec expects any origin.
client_api.trust_x_forwarded_for	WARP_TRUST_X_FORWARDED_FOR	false	Only behind a proxy that overwrites the header; the rate limiter keys on the result.
client_api.access_token_lifetime	WARP_ACCESS_TOKEN_LIFETIME	0s	0 = never expire. With a lifetime, clients may ask for a refresh token at login.
client_api.refresh_token_lifetime	WARP_REFRESH_TOKEN_LIFETIME	0s	0 = never expire.
client_api.rate_limit.enabled	WARP_RATE_LIMIT_ENABLED	true
client_api.rate_limit.default.burst / .interval	—	30 / 100ms	Every rate-limited endpoint without its own bucket.
client_api.rate_limit.login.burst / .interval	—	10 / 1s	/login and /refresh.
client_api.rate_limit.register.burst / .interval	—	5 / 2s	/register and /register/available.
client_api.rate_limit.room_create.burst / .interval	—	10 / 1s	/createRoom, which writes a dozen events per call.
client_api.rate_limit.join.burst / .interval	—	10 / 1s	The two join endpoints.
client_api.rate_limit.sync.burst / .interval	—	100 / 20ms	/sync and the writes behind it: typing, receipts, to-device, presence.
sync.presence	WARP_SYNC_PRESENCE	false	Off by default; see below.
sync.typing_timeout	WARP_SYNC_TYPING_TIMEOUT	30s	How long a typing notification lasts, and the cap on what a client may ask for.
sync.long_poll_timeout	WARP_SYNC_LONG_POLL_TIMEOUT	30s	The cap on a /sync ?timeout=.
federation.enabled	WARP_FEDERATION_ENABLED	false
federation.allowlist	WARP_FEDERATION_ALLOWLIST	[]	Non-empty = federate only with these.
federation.denylist	WARP_FEDERATION_DENYLIST	[]	Always wins over the allowlist.
federation.allow_runtime_toggle	WARP_FEDERATION_ALLOW_RUNTIME_TOGGLE	true	See below.
federation.trusted_key_servers	WARP_FEDERATION_TRUSTED_KEY_SERVERS	[]	Notaries asked for a server's key when it cannot be reached itself, e.g. matrix.org. Empty = only ever ask the server.
federation.key_validity_period	WARP_FEDERATION_KEY_VALIDITY_PERIOD	24h	How long other servers may cache this server's key. At most 168h.
federation.tls_ca_file	WARP_FEDERATION_TLS_CA_FILE	empty	Extra CA certificates (PEM) for outbound federation, on top of the system roots.
registration.enabled	WARP_REGISTRATION_ENABLED	false
registration.allow_runtime_toggle	WARP_REGISTRATION_ALLOW_RUNTIME_TOGGLE	true
registration.tokens	WARP_REGISTRATION_TOKENS	[]	Non-empty = sign-up also needs one of these, as the m.login.registration_token stage.
logging.level	WARP_LOG_LEVEL	info	debug, info, warn, error.
logging.format	WARP_LOG_FORMAT	text	text or json.
logging.add_source	WARP_LOG_ADD_SOURCE	false	File and line in every record.
metrics.enabled	WARP_METRICS_ENABLED	true
metrics.path	WARP_METRICS_PATH	/metrics	Served on the same listener.

The rate limit buckets share one Go type, so per-bucket environment variables would all collide on the same name; they are YAML only. WARP_RATE_LIMIT_ENABLED=false turns the whole limiter off, which is what a test harness wants.

Rate limiting

Each bucket allows burst requests back to back and returns one slot every interval, keyed per client address. Over the limit is 429 M_LIMIT_EXCEEDED with a retry_after_ms the client is expected to honour.

Buckets are per endpoint class, so a client hammering /login cannot spend the budget of /profile. The key is the client address and not the user, because the limiter runs before the access token is resolved — a limiter that had to query the database to find its own key would be a denial of service of its own. Behind a reverse proxy, set client_api.trust_x_forwarded_for: true, or every client shares one bucket.

The admin API under /_warp/admin/v1 is not rate limited: it needs an admin token, and bulk operations from the panel are exactly the traffic a limiter would get in the way of.

Presence

sync.presence is off by default. Presence — who is online, and the status message they set — is the noisiest thing in Matrix: every user's state change is published to everybody they share a room with, which over federation is quadratic in the worst case. Synapse deployments routinely turn it off for that reason, and a private homeserver with a dozen users gains little from it.

With it off:

• GET and PUT /presence/{userId}/status answer 403 M_FORBIDDEN. They are deliberately not unregistered: a client that gets a 404 from /presence concludes the server is too old to have it and stops asking, where a refusal says this one has it switched off.
• The presence section of a /sync response is empty.
• ?set_presence= on /sync is ignored rather than refused — it rides on every sync a client sends, and failing them all would make the server unusable.

It is a boot-time setting, not a runtime one: turning it on starts publishing a stream that nothing was tracking before, and a server that could do that mid-flight would owe every connected client a resync.

Long polling

/sync holds a request open until something happens or the timeout expires, so listen.write_timeout has to stay above sync.long_poll_timeout — otherwise the listener cuts off a blocked sync before it can answer, and the client sees a dropped connection instead of an empty response.

Raising sync.long_poll_timeout does not make a client hear about messages sooner: a blocked sync is woken the moment anything concerning it is written. All the timeout decides is how often an idle client re-establishes its request.

Settings that change at runtime

federation.enabled and registration.enabled are also stored in the server_settings database table, which is what the admin API writes to.

• With allow_runtime_toggle: true (the default) the stored value wins over the config file at boot, and the admin API may change it. The change takes effect on the next request; no restart.
• With allow_runtime_toggle: false the config file is authoritative and the admin API refuses to change the setting. Any previously stored value is kept but ignored, so re-enabling the toggle restores the administrator's last choice.

Everything else is read once at startup.

What federation off actually means

While federation.enabled is false:

• /_matrix/federation/*, /_matrix/key/* and /.well-known/matrix/server answer 404 M_UNRECOGNIZED, exactly as on a server with no federation API. The TLS listener on listen.federation_address, if there is one, stays up and answers the same way.
• Nothing outbound runs. The transaction queue is stopped, and the federation client refuses every request — key fetches, joins, profile and alias lookups — before it opens a connection, so a component that somehow missed the switch still cannot reach another server.
• Events persisted while it is off are not queued for other servers. A remote server that cares about the room fetches what it missed the next time it hears from this one. What was already queued when the switch went off stays queued, and goes out when it comes back on.
• Client-Server endpoints that would need a remote server answer M_FORBIDDEN with a message saying federation is disabled.
• Events are still signed with the server key, and room and event IDs are unchanged. A room created while federation is off federates normally once it is switched on.

Federation over TLS

Other servers reach this one at whatever its server name resolves to: the address in /.well-known/matrix/server, an SRV record, or the name itself on port 8448. Two deployment shapes:

• Behind a reverse proxy that terminates TLS — the usual one. Set global.well_known.server_address to the proxy's host:443 and leave listen.federation_address empty: the proxy forwards /_matrix/federation and /_matrix/key to listen.address like everything else.
• Warp terminates TLS itself: set listen.federation_address to :8448 with listen.tls_cert_file and listen.tls_key_file. The certificate must be valid for the server name (or for the delegated name, if the well-known document delegates).

Outbound federation verifies certificates against the system roots, plus federation.tls_ca_file when it is set — for a private federation whose servers share an internal CA. There is no switch to turn verification off.