Custom settings¶

You can use any of the settings understood by Django and django-ca provides some of its own settings.

How to configure¶

If you use django-ca as a Django app, set settings normally using your settings.py file (or whatever custom mechanism you have devised).

If you use the full django-ca project (e.g. if you install from source, or use Docker or docker-compose), do not update the settings.py file included with django-ca. Instead, use YAML files that django-ca loads (in alphabetical order) from a preconfigured directory. Please see the respective installation instructions for how to override settings.

The django-ca project also lets you override simple string-like settings via environment variables. The environment variable name is the same as the setting but prefixed with DJANGO_CA_. For example to set the CA_DIR setting, pass a DJANGO_CA_CA_DIR environment variable. Environment variables take precedence over the YAML configuration files above.

The django-ca project also recognizes some environment variables to better integrate with other systems. See Global environment variables for more information.

Required Django settings¶

If you use django-ca as a Django app the only required settings are the settings any Django project requires anyway, most importantly DATABASES, SECRET_KEY, ALLOWED_HOSTS and STATIC_ROOT.

If you install from source, you only have to set the DATABASES and SECRET_KEY settings. The CA_DEFAULT_HOSTNAME also configures the ALLOWED_HOSTS setting if not set otherwise. Please see the section on configuration for more information.

If you use Docker or docker-compose, there isn’t really any standard Django setting you need to configure, as safe defaults are used. A safe value for SECRETS_KEY is generated automatically, ALLOWED_HOSTS is set via CA_DEFAULT_HOSTNAME and the DATABASES setting is automatically populated with environment variables also used by the PostgreSQL/MySQL containers.

django-ca settings¶

All settings used by django-ca start with the CA_ prefix.

CA_CRL_PROFILES

Default:

{
    'user': {
        'algorithm': 'SHA512',
        'expires': 86400,
        'scope': 'user',
        'encodings': ['DER', ],
    },
    'ca': {
        'algorithm': 'SHA512',
        'expires': 86400,
        'scope': 'ca',
        'encodings': ['DER', ],
    },
}

A set of CRLs to create using automated tasks.

CA_DEFAULT_CA

Default: ""

The serial of the CA to use when no CA is explicitly given.

For example, if you sign a certificate using the manage.py sign_cert command and do not pass the --ca parameter, the CA given here will be used. You can get a list of serials from the admin interface or via the manage.py list_cas command.

Warning

Some parts of django-ca will start throwing errors when attempting to use a default CA that is expired or disabled. So please make sure you keep this setting up to date.

If this setting is not set, django-ca will select the CA that is currently usable (enabled, currently valid, not revoked) and and has an expiry furthest in the future.

CA_DEFAULT_ECC_CURVE

Default: "SECP256R1"

The default elliptic curve used for generating CA private keys when ECC is used.

CA_DEFAULT_EXPIRES

Default: 730

The default time, in days, that any signed certificate expires.

CA_DEFAULT_HOSTNAME

Default: None

If set, the default hostname will be used to automatically generate URLs for CRLs and OCSP services. This setting must not include the protocol, as OCSP always uses HTTP (not HTTPS) and this setting might be used for other values in the future.

Warning

If you change this setting, CRLs configured to contain only CA revocation information (that is, to check if an intermediate CA itself was revoked) are no longer strictly valid. However, few if any implementations actually implement validation for this.

If you change this setting, you should configure django-ca to continue using the old URLs.

Example value: "ca.example.com".

CA_DEFAULT_KEY_SIZE

Default: 4096

The default key size for newly created CAs (not used for CAs based on ECC).

CA_DEFAULT_PROFILE

Default: webserver

The default profile to use.

CA_DEFAULT_SUBJECT

Default: tuple() (empty tuple)

Changed in version 1.21.0: This value used to be a dict until django-ca==1.21.0. Please use a tuple instead. Support for using a dict will be removed in django-ca==1.23.0.

The default subject to use. The keys of this dictionary are the valid fields in X509 certificate subjects. Example:

CA_DEFAULT_SUBJECT = (
   ("C", "AT"),
   ("ST", "Vienna"),
   ("L", "Vienna"),
   ("O", "Example"),
   ("OU", "Example Unit"),
   ("emailAddress", "user@example.com"),
)

CA_DIGEST_ALGORITHM

Default: "sha512"

The default digest algorithm used to sign certificates. You may want to use "sha256" for older (before 2010) clients. Note that this setting is also used by the init_ca command, so if you have any clients that do not understand SHA-512 hashes, you should change this beforehand.

CA_DIR

Default: "files/"

Where the root certificate is stored. The default is a files directory in the same location as your manage.py file.

CA_FILE_STORAGE

Default: 'django.core.files.storage.FileSystemStorage'

Default storage backend for files created by django-ca. The default is the same as the default for DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE, so django-ca will still use local file system storage even if you configure a different storage backend in DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE. The default uses CA_FILE_STORAGE_KWARGS to store files in a different location, since the default (MEDIA_ROOT) is commonly used to upload user-generated files that are exposed to the web by the web server.

CA_FILE_STORAGE_KWARGS

Default: {'location': 'files/', 'file_permissions_mode': 0o600, 'directory_permissions_mode': 0o700}

Add any arguments to the storage backend configured in CA_FILE_STORAGE.

CA_NOTIFICATION_DAYS

Default: [14, 7, 3, 1, ]

Days before expiry that certificate watchers will receive notifications. By default, watchers will receive notifications 14, seven, three and one days before expiry.

CA_OCSP_URLS

Default: {}

Configuration for OCSP responders. See Run a OCSP responder for more information.

CA_PASSWORDS

Default: {}

A dictionary configuring passwords for the private keys of CAs. This setting is required if you create a CA with an encrypted private key and want to automatically create CRLs and OCSP keys.

CA_PROFILES

Default: {}

Add new profiles or change existing ones. Please see Profiles for more information on profiles.

CA_USE_CELERY

Default: None

Set to True to force django-ca to use Celery or to False to force not using it. The default is to use Celery if it is installed.

ACMEv2 settings¶

Warning

ACMEv2 functionality is still in development and is disabled by default. You have to set CA_ENABLE_ACME=True to enable the feature. ACMEv2 will be enabled by default starting with django-ca==1.22.0.

CA_ENABLE_ACME

Default: False

Set to True to enable ACME functionality. If set to False (the default), all ACME functionality is disabled.

Note that even when enabled, you need to explicitly enable ACMEv2 support for a certificate authority either via the admin interface or via the command-line interface.

CA_ACME_ACCOUNT_REQUIRES_CONTACT

Default: True

Set to false to allow creating ACMEv2 accounts without an email address.

CA_ACME_DEFAULT_CERT_VALIDITY

Default: timedelta(days=90)

A timedelta representing the default validity time any certificate issued via ACME is valid.

CA_ACME_MAX_CERT_VALIDITY

Default: timedelta(days=90)

A timedelta representing the maximum validity time any certificate issued via ACME is valid. The ACMEv2 protocol allows for clients to request a non-default validity time, but certbot currently does not expose this feature.

CA_ACME_ORDER_VALIDITY

Default: 1

Default time (in hours) a request for a new certificate (“order”) remains valid. You may also set a timedelta object.

Project settings¶

Project settings are available if you use the full django-ca project (including if you use the Docker container or via docker-compose). The settings are _not_ prefixed with CA_, because they configure how Django itself works.

As any other setting, they can be set by using environment variables prefixed with DJANGO_CA_ (Example: To set LOG_LEVEL, set the DJANGO_CA_LOG_LEVEL environment variable).

CA_CUSTOM_APPS

Default: []

The list gets appended to the standard INSTALLED_APPS setting. If you need more control, you can always override that setting instead.

CA_ENABLE_CLICKJACKING_PROTECTION

Default: True

Set to False to disable Clickjacking protection. The setting influences if the XFrameOptionsMiddleware is added to the list of middlewares. This setting is useful if the header is already set by the web server.

LOG_FORMAT

Default: "[%(levelname)-8s %(asctime).19s] %(message)s""

The default log format of log messages. This setting has no effect if you define the LOGGING setting.

LOG_LEVEL

Default: "WARNING"

The log level for all messages from django-ca. This setting has no effect if you define the LOGGING setting.

LIBRARY_LOG_LEVEL

Default: "WARNING"

The log level for all messages _except_ from django-ca. This setting has no effect if you define the LOGGING setting.

SECRET_KEY_FILE

Default: "/var/lib/django-ca/secret_key"

A path to a file that stores Djangos SECRET_KEY. The setting is only used if no SECRET_KEY is defined.

If you use Docker/docker-compose, the file is automatically generated with a random value on first startup. You only have to use this setting if you want to specify a custom value for some reason. If you use docker-compose, you should make sure that frontend and backend container have access to the same file.

Global environment variables¶

If you use the full django-ca project (e.g. if you install from source or use Docker or docker-compose), you can also make use of some environment variables set by other systems.

Configuration directory¶

The django-ca project reads custom settings from YAML files in a directory.

All installation options already include a good default for this environment variable and examples in the quickstart guides assume it is not modified. It is documented here for completeness.

DJANGO_CA_SETTINGS

The directory where to load YAML settings files. All files in the directory that have a .yaml suffix will be read in alphabetical order.

Multiple directories can be separated by a colon (":"). In this case, django-ca will first read all directories from the first directory, then from the second one, and so on.

The setting can also point to a single file, assumed to be a YAML file.

If not set, the value of the CONFIGURATION_DIRECTIVE environment variable (see SystemD) is used as a fallback.

Databases¶

Both the PostgreSQL and MySQL Docker containers get their database name and access credentials from environment variables and django-ca also recognizes these variables.

This is especially powerful when using docker-compose, where it is sufficient to set the POSTGRES_PASSWORD environment variable to configure the database, all other options use default values that just work.

But any other setup can also make use of this feature. For example, with plain Docker, you could just configure PostgreSQL:

localsettings.yaml¶

DATABASES:
   default:
      ENGINE: django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2

… and then start your docker containers with (not a full example here):

$ docker run -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=... postgres
$ docker run -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=... mathiasertl/django-ca

POSTGRES_DB, POSTGRES_USER, POSTGRES_PASSWORD: Access details to a PostgreSQL database.
MYSQL_DATABASE, MYSQL_USER, MYSQL_PASSWORD: Access details to a MySQL database.

SystemD¶

The django-ca project also recognizes some environment variables set by SystemD.

The SystemD services included in our quickstart guide already set this variable and further examples assume that you did not modify it. It is documented here for completeness.

CONFIGURATION_DIRECTORY: If set, django-ca will load YAML configuration files from this directory. The variable is set by the ConfigurationDirectory= directive.