Environment Variables and Global Options

Fossil uses a number of environment variables and supports a number of global options. Most of these seem to be primarily documented in the source code, with the primary exception of --args which is described in the usage text printed by running fossil with no arguments at all.

Global Options

The following options are understood by the fossil command itself, and are collected before any subcommand begins processing.

--args FILENAME: Read the file FILENAME and replace these two arguments with its content. Each line of the file is assumed to be an argument unless it starts with '-' and contains a space, in which case it is assumed to be another flag and is treated as such. --args FILENAME may be used in conjunction with any other flags.

--case-sensitive BOOL: Override the case-sensitive setting, which can override the native preferences of the platform for case sensitive file names: insensitive on Windows, sensitive on Unix. There are probably odd interactions possible if you mix case sensitive and case insensitive file systems on any single platform. This option or the global setting should be used to force the case sensitivity to the most sensible condition.

--chdir DIRECTORY:

--comfmtflags NUMBER:

--errorlog ERRLOG:

--help: If --help is found anywhere on the command line, translate the command to fossil help cmdname where cmdname is the first argument that does not begin with a - character. If all arguments start with -, translate to fossil help argv[1] argv[2]....

--httptrace:

--localtime:

--nocgi: Prevent fossil from acting as a CGI by default even if the GATEWAY_INTERFACE environment variable is set.

--no-th-hook:

--quiet:

--sqltrace:

--sqlstats:

--sshtrace:

--ssl-identity SSLIDENTITY:

--systemtrace:

--user LOGIN: Also -U LOGIN.

--utc:

--vfs VFSNAME: Load the named VFS into SQLite.

Environment Variables

APPDATA: (Windows) Location of the ~/.fossil file. The first environment variable found in the environment from the list FOSSIL_HOME, LOCALAPPDATA (Windows), APPDATA (Windows), HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH (Windows, used together), and HOME is used as the location of the ~/.fossil file.

EDITOR: Name the editor to use for check-in and stash comments. Overridden by the local or global editor setting or the VISUAL environment variable.

FOSSIL_FORCE_TICKET_MODERATION: If set, ALL changes for tickets will be required to go through moderation (even those performed by the local interactive user via the command line). This can be useful for local (or remote) testing of the moderation subsystem and its impact on the contents and status of tickets.

FOSSIL_FORCE_WIKI_MODERATION: If set, ALL changes for wiki pages will be required to go through moderation (even those performed by the local interactive user via the command line). This can be useful for local (or remote) testing of the moderation subsystem and its impact on the contents and status of wiki pages.

FOSSIL_HOME: Location of the ~/.fossil file. The first environment variable found in the environment from the list FOSSIL_HOME, LOCALAPPDATA (Windows), APPDATA (Windows), HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH (Windows, used together), and HOME is used as the location of the ~/.fossil file.

FOSSIL_USER: Name of the default user account if the local or global default-user setting is not present. The first environment variable found in the environment from the list FOSSIL_USER, USERNAME (Windows), USER, and LOGNAME is the user name. If none of those are set, then the default user name is "root".

FOSSIL_TCL_PATH: When Tcl stubs support is configured, point to a specific file or folder containing the version of Tcl to load at run time.

FOSSIL_VFS: Name a VFS to load into SQLite.

GATEWAY_INTERFACE: If present and the --nocgi option is not, assume fossil is invoked from a web server as a CGI command, and act accordingly.

HOME: Location of the ~/.fossil file. The first environment variable found in the environment from the list FOSSIL_HOME, LOCALAPPDATA (Windows), APPDATA (Windows), HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH (Windows, used together), and HOME is used as the location of the ~/.fossil file.

HOMEDRIVE, HOMEPATH: (Windows) Location of the ~/.fossil file. The first environment variable found in the environment from the list FOSSIL_HOME, LOCALAPPDATA (Windows), APPDATA (Windows), HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH (Windows, used together), and HOME is used as the location of the ~/.fossil file.

HTTP_HOST: If defined, included in error log messages.

http_proxy: If the global or local settings proxy is not set, this is used as the default value for the proxy setting.

HTTP_USER_AGENT: If defined, included in error log messages.

LOCALAPPDATA: (Windows) Location of the ~/.fossil file. The first environment variable found in the environment from the list FOSSIL_HOME, LOCALAPPDATA (Windows), APPDATA (Windows), HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH (Windows, used together), and HOME is used as the location of the ~/.fossil file.

LOGNAME: Name of the default user account if the local or global default-user setting is not present. The first environment variable found in the environment from the list FOSSIL_USER, USERNAME (Windows), USER, and LOGNAME is the user name. If none of those are set, then the default user name is "root".

PATH: Used by most platforms to locate programs invoked without a fully qualified name. Explicitly used by fossil ui on certain platforms to choose the browser to launch.

PATH_INFO: If defined, included in error log messages.

QUERY_STRING: If defined, included in error log messages.

REMOTE_ADDR: If defined, included in error log messages.

REMOTE_HOST: Used by fossil http run from stunnel to identify the remote host.

REQUEST_METHOD: If defined, included in error log messages.

REQUEST_URI: If defined, included in error log messages.

SCRIPT_NAME: If defined, included in error log messages.

SSH_CONNECTION: Informs CGI processing if the remote client is SSH.

SQLITE_FORCE_PROXY_LOCKING: From sqlite3.c, 1 means force always use proxy, 0 means never use proxy, and undefined means use proxy for non-local files only.

SQLITE_TMPDIR: Names the temporary file location to SQLite.

SYSTEMROOT: (Windows) Used to locate notepad.exe as a fall back comment editor.

TEMP: On Windows, the location of temporary files. The first environment variable found in the environment that names an existing directory from the list TMP, TEMP, USERPROFILE, the Windows directory (usually C:\WINDOWS), TEMP, TMP, and the current directory (aka .) is the temporary folder.

TERM: If the linenoise library is used (almost certainly not on Windows), it will check TERM to verify that the interactive terminal is not named on a short list on terminals known to not work with linenoise. Linenoise is a library that provides command history and command line editing to interactive programs, and can be used in the fossil sqlite3 command.

TH1_DELETE_INTERP: Set this variable to ask fossil to explicitly delete the TH1 interpreter, if it is loaded, then check that it released all of its allocated memory, when exiting fossil. This is not strictly necessary, but makes debugging memory leaks easier. See main.c near line 386 for the code.

TH1_ENABLE_DOCS: Override the local or global setting tcl-docs to enable TH1 documents in fossil.

TH1_ENABLE_HOOKS: Override the local or global setting tcl-hooks to enable TH1 hooks in fossil.

TH1_ENABLE_TCL: Override the local or global setting tcl to enable TCL in fossil.

TMP: On Windows, the location of temporary files. The first environment variable found in the environment that names an existing directory from the list TMP, TEMP, USERPROFILE, the Windows directory (usually C:\WINDOWS), TEMP, TMP, and the current directory (aka .) is the temporary folder.

TMPDIR: Names the temporary file location to SQLite.

USER: Name of the default user account if the local or global default-user setting is not present. The first environment variable found in the environment from the list FOSSIL_USER, USERNAME (Windows), USER, and LOGNAME is the user name. If none of those are set, then the default user name is "root".

USERNAME: Name of the default user account if the local or global default-user setting is not present. The first environment variable found in the environment from the list FOSSIL_USER, USERNAME (Windows), USER, and LOGNAME is the user name. If none of those are set, then the default user name is "root".

USERPROFILE: On Windows, the location of temporary files. The first environment variable found in the environment that names an existing directory from the list TMP, TEMP, USERPROFILE, the Windows directory (usually C:\WINDOWS), TEMP, TMP, and the current directory (aka .) is the temporary folder.

VISUAL: Name the editor to use for check-in and stash comments. Overrides the EDITOR environment variable. Overridden by the local or global editor setting.

Notes on Related Values

CGI and JSON Parameters

The JSON API implementation looks up many values in the first of several places searched. This unifies the parameter handling logic, allows the caller to choose whether to prefer URL parameters or the POST payload, and allows the fossil json command to share most of the same logic as the /json API path. The search order is a POST payload, GET/COOKIE/non-JSON POST, JSON POST, the system environment.

See the comment above the implementation of json_getenv for some further discussion.

Comment Editor

The editor used to edit a check-in or stash comment is named by the local or global setting editor. If neither is set, then the environment variables VISUAL, and EDITOR are checked in that order.

On Windows, if no editor is named, then Notepad is used. Note that the operation will be aborted if notepad.exe is not found in the Windows folder.

On Unix-like platforms, if no editor is named, then a message is displayed on stdout, and stdin is read until a single line containing only a dot is seen.

Default Username

When creating a new repository, fossil wants to guess a sensible user name to make the default user granted the "s" permission.

Fossil will use the setting default-user if set. Normally, a local setting would override a global setting, but when creating a new repository it is more than a little unlikely that there is an open checkout to provide the local setting.

TODO: Any interaction caused by nesting repositories is not documented, but should be. Similarly for simply having the current directory inside a checkout regardless of whether the created repo will be nested.

If default-user is not set, then the first found environment variable from the list FOSSIL_USER, USERNAME (Windows), USER, and LOGNAME is the user name. If none of those are set, then the default user name is "root".

TODO Compare db_create_default_users() in db.c to user_select() in user.c which checks in a different order...

Figure out what user is at the controls.

1. Use the --user and -U command-line options.

2. If the local database is open, check in VVAR. ???

3. Check the default user in the repository (setting default-user)

4. Try the FOSSIL_USER environment variable.

5. Try the USER environment variable.

6. Try the LOGNAME environment variable.

7. Try the USERNAME environment variable.

8. Check if the user can be extracted from the remote URL, if there is a remote URL.

Error logging

If logging errors to a file, fossil will include the values of the following environment variables in the error log entry if they are defined: HTTP_HOST, HTTP_USER_AGENT, PATH_INFO, QUERY_STRING, REMOTE_ADDR, REQUEST_METHOD, REQUEST_URI, and SCRIPT_NAME.

Home Directory

Fossil keeps some information interesting to each user in the user's home directory. This includes the global settings and the list of repositories and checkouts used by fossil all.

The user's home directory is specified by the first environment variable found in the environment from the list FOSSIL_HOME, LOCALAPPDATA (Windows), APPDATA (Windows), HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH (Windows, used together), and HOME.

SQLite has its own notion of the user's home directory, which is only exposed if the interactive SQL shell is run with the "fossil sqlite3" command. Being a separate library, SQLite uses many of the same variables to find the home directory, but uses them in a different order, and does not use the FOSSIL_HOME variable at all.

SQLite VFS to use

See the SQLite documentation for an explanation of what a VFS actually is and what it does.

If the default VFS underneath SQLite is not suitable, an alternative can be selected with either the --vfs VFSNAME option or the FOSSIL_VFS environment variable. The --vfs option takes precedence.

Temporary File Location

Fossil places some temporary files in the current directory, notably supporting files related to merge conflicts are placed in the same folder as the merge result.

Other temporary files need a home. On Unix-like systems, the first folder from the hard coded list /var/tmp, /usr/tmp, /tmp, /temp, and . that is found to exist in the file system is used by fossil. The SQLite library has its own code for finding a safe place for temporary files. It checks the environment variables SQLITE_TMPDIR and TMPDIR ahead of the hard coded list /var/tmp, /usr/tmp, /tmp, and . for the first directory that exists.

On Windows, fossil calls GetTempPath, and also queries the environment variables TEMP, and TMP. If none of those three places exist, then it uses .. Notice that GetTempPath itself used TMP, TEMP, USERPROFILE, and the Windows folder (named in the variable SystemRoot). Since the Windows folder always exists, but in modern versions of Windows is generally not writable by the logged in user, not having TEMP, TMP, or USERPROFILE set is almost guaranteed to cause trouble.

That said, it is not unusual for utilities on all platforms to assume that TEMP or TMP point somewhere safe for temporary files.

If the identified temporary folder is not writable, then weird things will happen on all platforms.

Web browser

Occasionally, fossil wants to launch a web browser for the user, most obviously as part of the fossil ui command. In that specific case, the browser is launched pointing at the web server started by fossil ui listening on a private TCP port.

On all platforms, if the local or global settings web-browser is set, that is the command used to open an URL.

Otherwise, the specific actions vary by platform.

On Unix-like platforms other than Apple's, it looks for the first program from the list xdg-open, gnome-open, firefox, and google-chrome that it can find on the PATH.

On Apple platforms, it assumes that open is the command to open an URL in the user's configured default browser.

On Windows platforms, it assumes that start is the command to open an URL in the user's configured default browser.