Initial Configuration

A single configuration file config.yaml is required to run Anchore - by default, this file is embedded in the Enterprise container image, located in /config/config.yaml. The default configuration file is provided as a way to get started, which is functional out of the box, without modification, when combined with either the Helm method or docker compose method of installing Enterprise. The default configuration is set up to use environment variable substitutions so that configuration values can be controlled by setting the corresponding environment variables at deployment time (see Using Environment Variables in Anchore.

Each environment variable (starting with ANCHORE_) in the default config.yaml is set (either the baseline as set in the Dockerfile, or an override in docker compose or Helm or through a system default) to ensure that the system comes up with a fully populated configuration.

Some examples of useful initial settings follow.

• Default admin credentials: A default admin email and password is required to be defined in the catalog service for the initial bootstrap of enterprise to succeed, which are both set through the default config file using the ANCHORE_ADMIN_PASSWORD and ANCHORE_ADMIN_EMAIL environment variables respectively. The system defines a default email admin@myanchore, but does not define a default password. If using the default config file, the user must set a value for ANCHORE_ADMIN_PASSWORD in order to succeed the initial bootstrap of the system. To set the default password or to override the default email, simply add overrides for ANCHORE_ADMIN_PASSWORD and ANCHORE_ADMIN_EMAIL environment variables, set to your preferred values prior to deploying Anchore Enterprise. After the initial bootstrap, this can be removed if desired.

default_admin_password: '${ANCHORE_ADMIN_PASSWORD}'
default_admin_email: '${ANCHORE_ADMIN_EMAIL}'

• Log level: Anchore Enterprise is configured to run at the INFO log level by default. The full set of options are CRITICAL, ERROR, WARNING, INFO, and DEBUG (in ascending order of log output verbosity). To set the log level of Anchore Enterprise Services, add an override for ANCHORE_LOG_LEVEL prior to deploying Anchore Enterprise.

log_level: '${ANCHORE_LOG_LEVEL}'

• Postgres Database: Anchore Enterprise requires access to a PostgreSQL database to operate. The database can be run as a container with a persistent volume or outside of your container environment (which is set up automatically if the example docker-compose.yaml is used). If you wish to use an external Postgres Database, the elements of the connection string in the config.yaml can be specified as environment variable overrides. The default configuration is set up to connect to a postgres DB that is deployed alongside Anchore Enterprise Services when using docker-compose or Helm, to the internal host anchore-db on port 5432 using username postgres with password mysecretpassword and db postgres. If an external database service is being used then you will need to provide the use, password, host, port and DB name environment variables, as shown below.

db_connect: 'postgresql://${ANCHORE_DB_USER}:${ANCHORE_DB_PASSWORD}@${ANCHORE_DB_HOST}:${ANCHORE_DB_PORT}/${ANCHORE_DB_NAME}'

Manual Configuration File Override

While Anchore Enterprise is set up to run out of the box without modifications, and many useful values can be overriden using environment variables as described above, one can always opt to have full control over the configuration by providing a config.yaml file explicitly, typically by generating the file and making it available from an external mount/configmap/etc. at deployment time. A good method to start if you wish to provide your own config.yaml is to extract the default config.yaml from the Anchore Enterprise container image, modify it, and then override the embedded /config/config.yaml at deployment time. For example:

• Extract the default config file from the anchore/enterprise container image:

# docker pull docker.io/anchore/enterprise:v5.X.X
# docker create --name ae docker.io/anchore/enterprise:v5.X.X
# docker cp ae:/config/config.yaml ./my_config.yaml
# docker rm ae

• Modify the configuration file to your liking.

• Set up your deployment to override the embedded /config/config.yaml at run time (below example shows how to achieve this with docker compose). Edit the docker-compose.yaml to include a volume mount that mounts your my_config.yaml over the embedded /config/config.yaml, resulting in a volume section for each Anchore Enterprise service definition.

...
  api:
...
    volumes:
     - /path/to/my_config.yaml:/config/config.yaml:z
...
  catalog:
...
    volumes:
     - /path/to/my_config.yaml:/config/config.yaml:z
...
  simpleq:
...
    volumes:
     - /path/to/my_config.yaml:/config/config.yaml:z
...
  policy-engine:
...
    volumes:
     - /path/to/my_config.yaml:/config/config.yaml:z
...
  analyzer:
...
    volumes:
     - /path/to/my_config.yaml:/config/config.yaml:z
...

Now, each service will come up with your external my_config.yaml mounted over the embedded /config/config.yaml.