AlphaDrive Configuration Reference

AlphaDrive is configured using environment variables, command-line flags, or an environment file (/etc/alphadrive/alphadrive.env).

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Environment Variables Reference

Variable	Description	Default Value	Example
ALPHADRIVE_PORT	HTTP port to listen on	8080	8080 or 3000
ALPHADRIVE_BIND	Interface address to bind	0.0.0.0	127.0.0.1 (behind proxy)
ALPHADRIVE_DATA_DIR	Base path for database, sessions, and files	./data	/var/lib/alphadrive/data
ALPHADRIVE_DATABASE_PATH	Custom SQLite database file location	<data_dir>/alphadrive.db	/var/lib/alphadrive/data/alphadrive.db
ALPHADRIVE_FILES_DIR	Custom path for uploaded binary object files	<data_dir>/files/objects	/mnt/storage/objects
ALPHADRIVE_SESSION_KEY	Persistent 32-byte secret for cookie hashing	Auto-generated in data dir	hex_encoded_32_bytes

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Directory Structure Layout

When AlphaDrive runs, it maintains the following sandboxed directory hierarchy:

/var/lib/alphadrive/data/
 alphadrive.db          # Primary SQLite database (WAL mode)
 alphadrive.db-wal      # SQLite Write-Ahead Log
 alphadrive.db-shm      # SQLite Shared Memory index
 session.key            # Cryptographic session key (0600 permissions)
 files/
     objects/           # Content-addressed opaque binary objects
         3a/
            3a7f8e...  # Encapsulated file blobs (no plain filenames)
         b4/
             b49921...

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Security Best Practices

1. Unprivileged Execution: Never run AlphaDrive as root. Use the alphadrive system user.
2. Reverse Proxy Binding: When running behind Caddy, Nginx, or Traefik, always set ALPHADRIVE_BIND=127.0.0.1 so the port is not exposed directly to the public internet.
3. HTTPS / TLS: Always terminate TLS at your reverse proxy in production to ensure all credentials and file transfers are encrypted in transit.
4. File Permissions: Ensure /var/lib/alphadrive has ownership alphadrive:alphadrive and mode 0700 or 0750.