Custom environment variables

When running CLI commands, you can override any environment variable by providing a custom env file. It can be useful on certain complex setups.

Auto-loaded env file

If you create a file named tipi.env in the user-config directory of your Runtipi installation, it will be automatically loaded every time the CLI generates the environment. No extra flags are needed.

# Create the file
nano /path/to/runtipi/user-config/tipi.env

Add your overrides in standard env format:

INTERNAL_IP=192.168.1.100
NGINX_PORT=8080

This file is applied on every start, restart, and update command automatically.

Custom env file via CLI flag

You can also pass a custom env file explicitly using the --env-file flag. This takes precedence over both the default values and the auto-loaded tipi.env file. The path can be relative to the runtipi-cli or absolute.

sudo ./runtipi-cli start --env-file ./.env.local

sudo ./runtipi-cli start --env-file /home/pi/.env.local

Priority order

Environment variables are resolved in the following order (last wins):

1. Default values generated from settings.json
2. user-config/tipi.env (auto-loaded)
3. --env-file flag (manual override)

See Environment variables for a list of all environment variables used by Runtipi.