Environment variables for database configuration

[tarilen]

Hey all.

I'm currently setting up a paid version of Stirling in Azure Container Apps. I was initially setting up all my env vars in the container. I didn't want to mess with a volume for configs, but now that I'm trying to set the database I'm having trouble. The combinations that I've tried haven't worked and Stirling tries to use localhost:5432.

I'm running Stirling v2.9.2. The env vars I've added to try to get it to work

DISABLE_ADDITIONAL_FEATURES=true
SYSTEM_DATASOURCE_ENABLECUSTOMDATABASE=true
SYSTEM_DATASOURCE_USERNAME
SYSTEM_DATASOURCE_PASSWORD
SYSTEM_DATASOURCE_CUSTOMDATABACKENDURL

I couldn't find concise documentation other than these settings, and they don't work for me.

Log output

13:57:26.258 [main] INFO s.s.p.s.configuration.DatabaseConfig - Using custom database configuration

Caused by: org.postgresql.util.PSQLException: Connection to localhost:5432 refused. Check that the hostname and port are correct and that the postmaster is accepting TCP/IP connections.

org.hibernate.exception.JDBCConnectionException: Unable to obtain isolated JDBC connection [Connection to localhost:5432 refused. Check that the hostname and port are correct and that the postmaster is accepting TCP/IP connections.] [n/a]

[dosubot[bot]]

Hi @tarilen! I'm Dosu and I’m helping the Stirling-PDF team.

The likely issue is that you have DISABLE_ADDITIONAL_FEATURES=true, which prevents the external database configuration from being used — Stirling-PDF falls back to defaults, which is why you see the localhost:5432 connection attempt [1].

To use an external PostgreSQL database, you need:

• DISABLE_ADDITIONAL_FEATURES set to "false" (not "true") [1]
• SYSTEM_DATASOURCE_ENABLECUSTOMDATABASE: "true" ✅
• SYSTEM_DATASOURCE_CUSTOMDATABACKENDURL: full JDBC URL, e.g. jdbc:postgresql://your-host:5432/your_db
• SYSTEM_DATASOURCE_USERNAME: your DB username
• SYSTEM_DATASOURCE_PASSWORD: your DB password

Note that external database support is an enterprise feature and requires a valid license [1].

As an alternative to the full JDBC URL, you can also configure the connection with individual variables [1]:

• SYSTEM_DATASOURCE_TYPE: postgresql
• SYSTEM_DATASOURCE_HOSTNAME: your DB host
• SYSTEM_DATASOURCE_PORT: 5432
• SYSTEM_DATASOURCE_NAME: your database name

To reply, just mention @dosu.

---

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[tarilen]

Thanks for the answer.

I resolved the issue. I believe where documentation led me wrong was the var

SYSTEM_DATASOURCE_CUSTOMDATABACKENDURL

Instead I used the yaml file to guide me

SYSTEM_DATASOURCE_CUSTOMDATABASEURL

Small change, big impact. After that I was able to launch my container and it was able to connect to the database.