Environment Variables

Kener needs some environment variables to be set to run properly. Here are the list of environment variables that you need to set.

All of these are optional but are required for specific features.

KENER_SECRET_KEY [Required]

Please set a strong secret key for Kener to use for encrypting the data. This is required to run Kener.

export KENER_SECRET_KEY=a-strong-secret-key

ORIGIN [Required]

Set this to the origin of your website(protocl + hostname + port if there). This is required for CORS.

export ORIGIN=http://localhost:3000

PORT

Defaults to 3000 if not specified

export PORT=4242

KENER_BASE_PATH

By default kener runs on / but you can change it to /status or any other path.

Important: The base path should NOT have a trailing slash and should start with /
Important: This env variable should be present during both build and run time

export KENER_BASE_PATH=/status

RESEND_API_KEY

Kener uses resend.com to send emails. Please make sure to sign up in resend.com and get the API key. You will need to set the API key in the environment variable RESEND_API_KEY.

export RESEND_API_KEY=re_sometoken

RESEND_SENDER_EMAIL

Set the sender email for the emails that are sent by Kener. This is required for sending emails. If you have not added a domain in resend, you can se something like Some Name <onboarding@resend.dev>. We recommend adding a domain in resend and using that email domain.

export RESEND_SENDER_EMAIL=Some Name <email@domain.com>

Please note that the RESEND_API_KEY is required for sending emails. If you do not set this, Kener will not be able to send emails. RESEND_SENDER_EMAIL is a must if you forget your password. If you do not want to use resend, you can set SMTP variables.

DATABASE_URL

Kener uses a database to store its data. By default, Kener uses sqlite. You can change the database by setting the DATABASE_URL environment variable. The connection string has to start with sqlite, postgresql, or mysql. Read more about database configuration.

export DATABASE_URL=sqlite://./database/awesomeKener.db

TZ

Set the timezone for the server. Set it to UTC.

export TZ=UTC

SMTP

Kener can also use SMTP to send emails. You can set the SMTP server details in the environment variables.

export SMTP_HOST=smtp.example.com
export SMTP_PORT=587
export SMTP_USER=username
export SMTP_PASS=password
export SMTP_SECURE=0
export SMTP_FROM_EMAIL=Some Name <user@example.com>

Generally, port 465 expects implicit SSL (SMTP_SECURE: 1), while port 587 and port 25 usually use STARTTLS (SMTP_SECURE: 0).

So, if you are using SMTP on port 465, set SMTP_SECURE: 1; otherwise, for ports 25 or 587, set SMTP_SECURE: 0.

If you set SMTP variables, Kener will use SMTP to send emails. If you set RESEND_API_KEY, Kener will use resend to send emails. If you do both Kener will use SMTP.

If your SMTP provider does require username and password, you can set SMTP_USER and SMTP_PASS to -.

Using .env

You can also use a .env file to set these variables. Create a .env file in the root of the project and add the variables like below

KENER_SECRET_KEY=please_change_me
PORT=4242
GH_TOKEN=your-github-token
RESEND_API_KEY=re_sometoken
KENER_BASE_PATH=/status
ORIGIN=http://localhost:3000

Secrets

Kener supports secrets in monitors. Let us say you have a monitor that is API based and you want to keep the API key secret.

Example: https://api.example.com/users with a header Authorization: Bearer $CLIENT_SECRET

You should set the CLIENT_SECRET in the your environment variables.

export CLIENT_SECRET=your-api-key

Remember to set the CLIENT_SECRET in your .env file if you are using one.