---
title: Configuring Superset
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---

# Configuring Superset

## superset_config.py

Superset exposes hundreds of configurable parameters through its
[config.py module](https://github.com/apache/superset/blob/master/superset/config.py). The
variables and objects exposed act as a public interface of the bulk of what you may want
to configure, alter and interface with. In this python module, you'll find all these
parameters, sensible defaults, as well as rich documentation in the form of comments

To configure your application, you need to create your own configuration module, which
will allow you to override few or many of these parameters. Instead of altering the core module,
you'll want to define your own module (typically a file named `superset_config.py`).
Add this file to your `PYTHONPATH` or create an environment variable
`SUPERSET_CONFIG_PATH` specifying the full path of the `superset_config.py`.

For example, if deploying on Superset directly on a Linux-based system where your
`superset_config.py` is under `/app` directory, you can run:

```bash
export SUPERSET_CONFIG_PATH=/app/superset_config.py
```

If you are using your own custom Dockerfile with the official Superset image as base image,
then you can add your overrides as shown below:

```bash
COPY --chown=superset superset_config.py /app/
ENV SUPERSET_CONFIG_PATH /app/superset_config.py
```

Docker compose deployments handle application configuration differently using specific conventions.
Refer to the [docker compose tips & configuration](/docs/installation/docker-compose#docker-compose-tips--configuration)
for details.

The following is an example of just a few of the parameters you can set in your `superset_config.py` file:

```
# Superset specific config
ROW_LIMIT = 5000

# Flask App Builder configuration
# Your App secret key will be used for securely signing the session cookie
# and encrypting sensitive information on the database
# Make sure you are changing this key for your deployment with a strong key.
# Alternatively you can set it with `SUPERSET_SECRET_KEY` environment variable.
# You MUST set this for production environments or the server will refuse
# to start and you will see an error in the logs accordingly.
SECRET_KEY = 'YOUR_OWN_RANDOM_GENERATED_SECRET_KEY'

# The SQLAlchemy connection string to your database backend
# This connection defines the path to the database that stores your
# superset metadata (slices, connections, tables, dashboards, ...).
# Note that the connection information to connect to the datasources
# you want to explore are managed directly in the web UI
# The check_same_thread=false property ensures the sqlite client does not attempt
# to enforce single-threaded access, which may be problematic in some edge cases
SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI = 'sqlite:////path/to/superset.db?check_same_thread=false'

# Flask-WTF flag for CSRF
WTF_CSRF_ENABLED = True
# Add endpoints that need to be exempt from CSRF protection
WTF_CSRF_EXEMPT_LIST = []
# A CSRF token that expires in 1 year
WTF_CSRF_TIME_LIMIT = 60 * 60 * 24 * 365

# Set this API key to enable Mapbox visualizations
MAPBOX_API_KEY = ''
```

:::tip
Note that it is typical to copy and paste [only] the portions of the
core [superset/config.py](https://github.com/apache/superset/blob/master/superset/config.py) that
you want to alter, along with the related comments into your own `superset_config.py` file.
:::

All the parameters and default values defined
in [superset/config.py](https://github.com/apache/superset/blob/master/superset/config.py)
can be altered in your local `superset_config.py`. Administrators will want to read through the file
to understand what can be configured locally as well as the default values in place.

Since `superset_config.py` acts as a Flask configuration module, it can be used to alter the
settings of Flask itself, as well as Flask extensions that Superset bundles like
`flask-wtf`, `flask-caching`, `flask-migrate`,
and `flask-appbuilder`. Each one of these extensions offers intricate configurability.
Flask App Builder, the web framework used by Superset, also offers many
configuration settings. Please consult the
[Flask App Builder Documentation](https://flask-appbuilder.readthedocs.org/en/latest/config.html)
for more information on how to configure it.

At the very least, you'll want to change `SECRET_KEY` and `SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI`. Continue reading for more about each of these.

## Specifying a SECRET_KEY

### Adding an initial SECRET_KEY

Superset requires a user-specified SECRET_KEY to start up. This requirement was [added in version 2.1.0 to force secure configurations](https://preset.io/blog/superset-security-update-default-secret_key-vulnerability/). Add a strong SECRET_KEY to your `superset_config.py` file like:

```python
SECRET_KEY = 'YOUR_OWN_RANDOM_GENERATED_SECRET_KEY'
```

You can generate a strong secure key with `openssl rand -base64 42`.

:::caution Use a strong secret key
This key will be used for securely signing session cookies and encrypting sensitive information stored in Superset's application metadata database.
Your deployment must use a complex, unique key.
:::

### Rotating to a newer SECRET_KEY

If you wish to change your existing SECRET_KEY, add the existing SECRET_KEY to your `superset_config.py` file as
`PREVIOUS_SECRET_KEY =`and provide your new key as `SECRET_KEY =`. You can find your current SECRET_KEY with these
commands - if running Superset with Docker, execute from within the Superset application container:

```python
superset shell
from flask import current_app; print(current_app.config["SECRET_KEY"])
```

Save your `superset_config.py` with these values and then run `superset re-encrypt-secrets`.

## Setting up a production metadata database

Superset needs a database to store the information it manages, like the definitions of
charts, dashboards, and many other things.

By default, Superset is configured to use [SQLite](https://www.sqlite.org/),
a self-contained, single-file database that offers a simple and fast way to get started
(without requiring any installation). However, for production environments,
using SQLite is highly discouraged due to security, scalability, and data integrity reasons.
It's important to use only the supported database engines and consider using a different
database engine on a separate host or container.

Superset supports the following database engines/versions:

| Database Engine                           | Supported Versions                       |
| ----------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------- |
| [PostgreSQL](https://www.postgresql.org/) | 10.X, 11.X, 12.X, 13.X, 14.X, 15.X, 16.X |
| [MySQL](https://www.mysql.com/)           | 5.7, 8.X                                 |

Use the following database drivers and connection strings:

| Database                                  | PyPI package              | Connection String                                                      |
| ----------------------------------------- | ------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| [PostgreSQL](https://www.postgresql.org/) | `pip install psycopg2`    | `postgresql://<UserName>:<DBPassword>@<Database Host>/<Database Name>` |
| [MySQL](https://www.mysql.com/)           | `pip install mysqlclient` | `mysql://<UserName>:<DBPassword>@<Database Host>/<Database Name>`      |

:::tip
Properly setting up metadata store is beyond the scope of this documentation. We recommend
using a hosted managed service such as [Amazon RDS](https://aws.amazon.com/rds/) or
[Google Cloud Databases](https://cloud.google.com/products/databases?hl=en) to handle
service and supporting infrastructure and backup strategy.
:::

To configure Superset metastore set `SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI` config key on `superset_config`
to the appropriate connection string.

## Running on a WSGI HTTP Server

While you can run Superset on NGINX or Apache, we recommend using Gunicorn in async mode. This
enables impressive concurrency even and is fairly easy to install and configure. Please refer to the
documentation of your preferred technology to set up this Flask WSGI application in a way that works
well in your environment. Here’s an async setup known to work well in production:

```
      -w 10 \
      -k gevent \
      --worker-connections 1000 \
      --timeout 120 \
      -b  0.0.0.0:6666 \
      --limit-request-line 0 \
      --limit-request-field_size 0 \
      --statsd-host localhost:8125 \
      "superset.app:create_app()"
```

Refer to the [Gunicorn documentation](https://docs.gunicorn.org/en/stable/design.html) for more
information. _Note that the development web server (`superset run` or `flask run`) is not intended
for production use._

If you're not using Gunicorn, you may want to disable the use of `flask-compress` by setting
`COMPRESS_REGISTER = False` in your `superset_config.py`.

Currently, the Google BigQuery Python SDK is not compatible with `gevent`, due to some dynamic monkeypatching on python core library by `gevent`.
So, when you use `BigQuery` datasource on Superset, you have to use `gunicorn` worker type except `gevent`.

## HTTPS Configuration

You can configure HTTPS upstream via a load balancer or a reverse proxy (such as nginx) and do SSL/TLS Offloading before traffic reaches the Superset application. In this setup, local traffic from a Celery worker taking a snapshot of a chart for Alerts & Reports can access Superset at a `http://` URL, from behind the ingress point.
You can also configure [SSL in Gunicorn](https://docs.gunicorn.org/en/stable/settings.html#ssl) (the Python webserver) if you are using an official Superset Docker image.

## Configuration Behind a Load Balancer

If you are running superset behind a load balancer or reverse proxy (e.g. NGINX or ELB on AWS), you
may need to utilize a healthcheck endpoint so that your load balancer knows if your superset
instance is running. This is provided at `/health` which will return a 200 response containing “OK”
if the webserver is running.

If the load balancer is inserting `X-Forwarded-For/X-Forwarded-Proto` headers, you should set
`ENABLE_PROXY_FIX = True` in the superset config file (`superset_config.py`) to extract and use the
headers.

In case the reverse proxy is used for providing SSL encryption, an explicit definition of the
`X-Forwarded-Proto` may be required. For the Apache webserver this can be set as follows:

```
RequestHeader set X-Forwarded-Proto "https"
```

## Configuring the application root

*Please be advised that this feature is in BETA.*

Superset supports running the application under a non-root path. The root path
prefix can be specified in one of two ways:

- Setting the `SUPERSET_APP_ROOT` environment variable to the desired prefix.
- Customizing the [Flask entrypoint](https://github.com/apache/superset/blob/master/superset/app.py#L29)
  by passing the `superset_app_root` variable.

Note, the prefix should start with a `/`.

### Customizing the Flask entrypoint

To configure a prefix, e.g `/analytics`, pass the `superset_app_root` argument to
`create_app` when calling flask run either through the `FLASK_APP`
environment variable:

```sh
FLASK_APP="superset:create_app(superset_app_root='/analytics')"
```

or as part of the `--app` argument to `flask run`:

```sh
flask --app "superset.app:create_app(superset_app_root='/analytics')"
```

### Docker builds

The [docker compose](/docs/installation/docker-compose#configuring-further) developer
configuration includes an additional environmental variable,
[`SUPERSET_APP_ROOT`](https://github.com/apache/superset/blob/master/docker/.env),
to simplify the process of setting up a non-default root path across the services.

In `docker/.env-local` set `SUPERSET_APP_ROOT` to the desired prefix and then bring the
services up with `docker compose up --detach`.

## Custom OAuth2 Configuration

Superset is built on Flask-AppBuilder (FAB), which supports many providers out of the box
(GitHub, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, Azure, etc). Beyond those, Superset can be configured to connect
with other OAuth2 Authorization Server implementations that support “code” authorization.

Make sure the pip package [`Authlib`](https://authlib.org/) is installed on the webserver.

First, configure authorization in Superset `superset_config.py`.

```python
from flask_appbuilder.security.manager import AUTH_OAUTH

# Set the authentication type to OAuth
AUTH_TYPE = AUTH_OAUTH

OAUTH_PROVIDERS = [
    {   'name':'egaSSO',
        'token_key':'access_token', # Name of the token in the response of access_token_url
        'icon':'fa-address-card',   # Icon for the provider
        'remote_app': {
            'client_id':'myClientId',  # Client Id (Identify Superset application)
            'client_secret':'MySecret', # Secret for this Client Id (Identify Superset application)
            'client_kwargs':{
                'scope': 'read'               # Scope for the Authorization
            },
            'access_token_method':'POST',    # HTTP Method to call access_token_url
            'access_token_params':{        # Additional parameters for calls to access_token_url
                'client_id':'myClientId'
            },
            'jwks_uri':'https://myAuthorizationServe/adfs/discovery/keys', # may be required to generate token
            'access_token_headers':{    # Additional headers for calls to access_token_url
                'Authorization': 'Basic Base64EncodedClientIdAndSecret'
            },
            'api_base_url':'https://myAuthorizationServer/oauth2AuthorizationServer/',
            'access_token_url':'https://myAuthorizationServer/oauth2AuthorizationServer/token',
            'authorize_url':'https://myAuthorizationServer/oauth2AuthorizationServer/authorize'
        }
    }
]

# Will allow user self registration, allowing to create Flask users from Authorized User
AUTH_USER_REGISTRATION = True

# The default user self registration role
AUTH_USER_REGISTRATION_ROLE = "Public"
```

In case you want to assign the `Admin` role on new user registration, it can be assigned as follows:
```python
AUTH_USER_REGISTRATION_ROLE = "Admin"
```
If you encounter the [issue](https://github.com/apache/superset/issues/13243) of not being able to list users from the Superset main page settings, although a newly registered user has an `Admin` role, please re-run `superset init` to sync the required permissions. Below is the command to re-run `superset init` using docker compose.
```
docker-compose exec superset superset init
```

Then, create a `CustomSsoSecurityManager` that extends `SupersetSecurityManager` and overrides
`oauth_user_info`:

```python
import logging
from superset.security import SupersetSecurityManager

class CustomSsoSecurityManager(SupersetSecurityManager):

    def oauth_user_info(self, provider, response=None):
        logging.debug("Oauth2 provider: {0}.".format(provider))
        if provider == 'egaSSO':
            # As example, this line request a GET to base_url + '/' + userDetails with Bearer  Authentication,
    # and expects that authorization server checks the token, and response with user details
            me = self.appbuilder.sm.oauth_remotes[provider].get('userDetails').data
            logging.debug("user_data: {0}".format(me))
            return { 'name' : me['name'], 'email' : me['email'], 'id' : me['user_name'], 'username' : me['user_name'], 'first_name':'', 'last_name':''}
    ...
```

This file must be located in the same directory as `superset_config.py` with the name
`custom_sso_security_manager.py`. Finally, add the following 2 lines to `superset_config.py`:

```
from custom_sso_security_manager import CustomSsoSecurityManager
CUSTOM_SECURITY_MANAGER = CustomSsoSecurityManager
```

**Notes**

- The redirect URL will be `https://<superset-webserver>/oauth-authorized/<provider-name>`
  When configuring an OAuth2 authorization provider if needed. For instance, the redirect URL will
  be `https://<superset-webserver>/oauth-authorized/egaSSO` for the above configuration.

- If an OAuth2 authorization server supports OpenID Connect 1.0, you could configure its configuration
  document URL only without providing `api_base_url`, `access_token_url`, `authorize_url` and other
  required options like user info endpoint, jwks uri etc. For instance:

  ```python
  OAUTH_PROVIDERS = [
    {   'name':'egaSSO',
        'token_key':'access_token', # Name of the token in the response of access_token_url
        'icon':'fa-address-card',   # Icon for the provider
        'remote_app': {
            'client_id':'myClientId',  # Client Id (Identify Superset application)
            'client_secret':'MySecret', # Secret for this Client Id (Identify Superset application)
            'server_metadata_url': 'https://myAuthorizationServer/.well-known/openid-configuration'
        }
    }
  ]
  ```

## LDAP Authentication

FAB supports authenticating user credentials against an LDAP server.
To use LDAP you must install the [python-ldap](https://www.python-ldap.org/en/latest/installing.html) package.
See [FAB's LDAP documentation](https://flask-appbuilder.readthedocs.io/en/latest/security.html#authentication-ldap)
for details.

## Mapping LDAP or OAUTH groups to Superset roles

AUTH_ROLES_MAPPING in Flask-AppBuilder is a dictionary that maps from LDAP/OAUTH group names to FAB roles.
It is used to assign roles to users who authenticate using LDAP or OAuth.

### Mapping OAUTH groups to Superset roles

The following `AUTH_ROLES_MAPPING` dictionary would map the OAUTH group "superset_users" to the Superset roles "Gamma" as well as "Alpha", and the OAUTH group "superset_admins" to the Superset role "Admin".

```python
AUTH_ROLES_MAPPING = {
"superset_users": ["Gamma","Alpha"],
"superset_admins": ["Admin"],
}
```

### Mapping LDAP groups to Superset roles

The following `AUTH_ROLES_MAPPING` dictionary would map the LDAP DN "cn=superset_users,ou=groups,dc=example,dc=com" to the Superset roles "Gamma" as well as "Alpha", and the LDAP DN "cn=superset_admins,ou=groups,dc=example,dc=com" to the Superset role "Admin".

```python
AUTH_ROLES_MAPPING = {
"cn=superset_users,ou=groups,dc=example,dc=com": ["Gamma","Alpha"],
"cn=superset_admins,ou=groups,dc=example,dc=com": ["Admin"],
}
```

Note: This requires `AUTH_LDAP_SEARCH` to be set. For more details, please see the [FAB Security documentation](https://flask-appbuilder.readthedocs.io/en/latest/security.html).

### Syncing roles at login

You can also use the `AUTH_ROLES_SYNC_AT_LOGIN` configuration variable to control how often Flask-AppBuilder syncs the user's roles with the LDAP/OAUTH groups. If `AUTH_ROLES_SYNC_AT_LOGIN` is set to True, Flask-AppBuilder will sync the user's roles each time they log in. If `AUTH_ROLES_SYNC_AT_LOGIN` is set to False, Flask-AppBuilder will only sync the user's roles when they first register.

## Flask app Configuration Hook

`FLASK_APP_MUTATOR` is a configuration function that can be provided in your environment, receives
the app object and can alter it in any way. For example, add `FLASK_APP_MUTATOR` into your
`superset_config.py` to setup session cookie expiration time to 24 hours:

```python
from flask import session
from flask import Flask


def make_session_permanent():
    '''
    Enable maxAge for the cookie 'session'
    '''
    session.permanent = True

# Set up max age of session to 24 hours
PERMANENT_SESSION_LIFETIME = timedelta(hours=24)
def FLASK_APP_MUTATOR(app: Flask) -> None:
    app.before_request_funcs.setdefault(None, []).append(make_session_permanent)
```

## Feature Flags

To support a diverse set of users, Superset has some features that are not enabled by default. For
example, some users have stronger security restrictions, while some others may not. So Superset
allows users to enable or disable some features by config. For feature owners, you can add optional
functionalities in Superset, but will be only affected by a subset of users.

You can enable or disable features with flag from `superset_config.py`:

```python
FEATURE_FLAGS = {
    'PRESTO_EXPAND_DATA': False,
}
```

A current list of feature flags can be found in [RESOURCES/FEATURE_FLAGS.md](https://github.com/apache/superset/blob/master/RESOURCES/FEATURE_FLAGS.md).
