Configuration

The backend reads its configuration from environment variables. There is no configuration file. The Load function in server/internal/config reads the variables and returns a Config value.

Configuration Variables

Variable	Purpose	Default
NVR_HTTP_ADDR	The HTTP listen address.	:8080
NVR_DATA_DIR	The data directory for the database.	./data
NVR_RECORDINGS_DIR	The recordings directory.	./recordings
NVR_SECRETS_KEY	The encryption key for secrets.	empty
NVR_LOG_LEVEL	The log level.	info
NVR_RETENTION_DAYS	The recording retention period.	7
NVR_MEDIAMTX_API_URL	The MediaMTX control API URL.	http://127.0.0.1:9997
NVR_MEDIAMTX_WEBRTC_URL	The MediaMTX WebRTC URL.	http://127.0.0.1:8889
NVR_MEDIAMTX_HLS_URL	The MediaMTX HLS URL.	http://127.0.0.1:8888
NVR_MEDIAMTX_PLAYBACK_URL	The MediaMTX playback URL.	empty
NVR_GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID	The Google OAuth client ID.	empty
NVR_GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET	The Google OAuth client secret.	empty
NVR_GOOGLE_REDIRECT_URL	The Google OAuth redirect URL.	empty

The recognized log levels are debug, info, warn, warning, and error. A malformed integer falls back to the default value.

The secrets key

The NVR_SECRETS_KEY variable is the encryption key. It encrypts the camera credentials and the Google Drive tokens at rest. Set a long random value in production.

The key is required before you connect Google Drive. Without a key, the backend stores credentials as plaintext for development.

Database settings

The backend stores some settings in the SQLite settings table. These settings override the environment variables. The settings are:

• The recordings directory.
• The recording enabled flag.
• The retention period.

When the recordings directory is empty, the backend disables recording.

Google Drive configuration

You can set the Google OAuth details in two ways:

• As the NVR_GOOGLE_* environment variables.
• In the dashboard under Settings, Google Drive.

When you save the OAuth details in the dashboard, the backend encrypts them and stores them in the settings table. It prefers these persisted values when they are present.

To set up Google OAuth:

1. Enable the Google Drive API.
2. Configure the consent screen with the drive.file and userinfo.email scopes.
3. Create Web application credentials.
4. Make the authorized redirect URI exactly match NVR_GOOGLE_REDIRECT_URL.

The default redirect URL is:

http://localhost:8080/api/v1/storage/gdrive/callback

The example environment file

The example file is in deploy/nvr.example.env. Copy it and set your values. The file documents the active variables and the commented production options.

See operations for the Docker environment and the deployment model.