arangodb/Documentation/Books/Manual/Administration/Configuration

Command-line options
====================

General Options
---------------

### General help

`--help`

`-h`

Prints a list of the most common options available and then exits. In order to
see all options use *--help-all*.

### Version

`--version`

`-v`

Prints the version of the server and exits.

### Configuration Files

Options can be specified on the command line or in configuration files. If a
string *Variable* occurs in the value, it is replaced by the corresponding
environment variable.

`--configuration filename`

`-c filename`

Specifies the name of the configuration file to use.

If this command is not passed to the server, then by default, the server will
attempt to first locate a file named *~/.arango/arangod.conf* in the user's home
directory.

If no such file is found, the server will proceed to look for a file
*arangod.conf* in the system configuration directory. The system configuration
directory is platform-specific, and may be changed when compiling ArangoDB
yourself. It may default to */etc/arangodb* or */usr/local/etc/arangodb*. This
file is installed when using a package manager like rpm or dpkg. If you modify
this file and later upgrade to a new version of ArangoDB, then the package
manager normally warns you about the conflict. In order to avoid these warning
for small adjustments, you can put local overrides into a file
*arangod.conf.local*.

Only command line options with a value should be set within the configuration
file. Command line options which act as flags should be entered on the command
line when starting the server.

Whitespace in the configuration file is ignored. Each option is specified on a
separate line in the form

```js
key = value
```

Alternatively, a header section can be specified and options pertaining to that
section can be specified in a shorter form

```js
[log]
level = trace
```

rather than specifying

```js
log.level = trace
```

So you see in general `--section.param value` translates to

```js
[section]
param=value 
```

Where one section may occur multiple times, and the last occurance of `param`
will become the final value. In case of parameters being vectors, multiple
occurance adds another item to the vector. Vectors can be identified by the
`...` in the `--help` output of the binaries.

Comments can be placed in the configuration file, only if the line begins with
one or more hash symbols (#).

There may be occasions where a configuration file exists and the user wishes to
override configuration settings stored in a configuration file. Any settings
specified on the command line will overwrite the same setting when it appears in
a configuration file. If the user wishes to completely ignore configuration
files without necessarily deleting the file (or files), then add the command
line option

```js
-c none
```

or

```js
--configuration none
```

When starting up the server. Note that, the word *none* is case-insensitive.