# Configuration

You can start using Akka without defining any configuration, since sensible default values
are provided. Later on you might need to amend the settings to change the default behavior
or adapt for specific runtime environments. Typical examples of settings that you
might amend:

 * @ref:[log level and logger backend](../typed/logging.md)
 * @ref:[enable Cluster](../typed/cluster.md)
 * @ref:[message serializers](../serialization.md)
 * @ref:[tuning of dispatchers](../typed/dispatchers.md)

Akka uses the [Typesafe Config Library](https://github.com/lightbend/config), which might also be a good choice
for the configuration of your own application or library built with or without
Akka. This library is implemented in Java with no external dependencies;
This is only a summary of the most important parts for more details see [the config library docs](https://github.com/lightbend/config/blob/master/README.md).

## Where configuration is read from

All configuration for Akka is held within instances of `ActorSystem`, or
put differently, as viewed from the outside, `ActorSystem` is the only
consumer of configuration information. While constructing an actor system, you
can either pass in a `Config` object or not, where the second case is
equivalent to passing `ConfigFactory.load()` (with the right class loader).
This means roughly that the default is to parse all `application.conf`,
`application.json` and `application.properties` found at the root of the
class path—please refer to the aforementioned documentation for details. The
actor system then merges in all `reference.conf` resources found at the root
of the class path to form the fallback configuration, i.e. it internally uses

```scala
appConfig.withFallback(ConfigFactory.defaultReference(classLoader))
```

The philosophy is that code never contains default values, but instead relies
upon their presence in the `reference.conf` supplied with the library in
question.

Highest precedence is given to overrides given as system properties, see [the
HOCON specification](https://github.com/typesafehub/config/blob/master/HOCON.md) (near the
bottom). Also noteworthy is that the application configuration—which defaults
to `application`—may be overridden using the `config.resource` property
(there are more, please refer to the [Config docs](https://github.com/typesafehub/config/blob/master/README.md)).

@@@ note

If you are writing an Akka application, keep your configuration in
`application.conf` at the root of the class path. If you are writing an
Akka-based library, keep its configuration in `reference.conf` at the root
of the JAR file. It's not supported to override a config property owned by
one library in a `reference.conf` of another library.

@@@

## When using JarJar, OneJar, Assembly or any jar-bundler

@@@ warning

Akka's configuration approach relies heavily on the notion of every
module/jar having its own `reference.conf` file. All of these will be
discovered by the configuration and loaded. Unfortunately this also means
that if you put/merge multiple jars into the same jar, you need to merge all the
`reference.conf` files as well: otherwise all defaults will be lost.

@@@

See the @ref[deployment documentation](../additional/deploy.md)
for information on how to merge the `reference.conf` resources while bundling.

## Custom application.conf

A custom `application.conf` might look like this:

```
# In this file you can override any option defined in the reference files.
# Copy in parts of the reference files and modify as you please.

akka {

  # Logger config for Akka internals and classic actors, the new API relies
  # directly on SLF4J and your config for the logger backend.

  # Loggers to register at boot time (akka.event.Logging$DefaultLogger logs
  # to STDOUT)
  loggers = ["akka.event.slf4j.Slf4jLogger"]

  # Log level used by the configured loggers (see "loggers") as soon
  # as they have been started; before that, see "stdout-loglevel"
  # Options: OFF, ERROR, WARNING, INFO, DEBUG
  loglevel = "DEBUG"

  # Log level for the very basic logger activated during ActorSystem startup.
  # This logger prints the log messages to stdout (System.out).
  # Options: OFF, ERROR, WARNING, INFO, DEBUG
  stdout-loglevel = "DEBUG"

  # Filter of log events that is used by the LoggingAdapter before
  # publishing log events to the eventStream.
  logging-filter = "akka.event.slf4j.Slf4jLoggingFilter"

  actor {
    provider = "cluster"

    default-dispatcher {
      # Throughput for default Dispatcher, set to 1 for as fair as possible
      throughput = 10
    }
  }

  remote.artery {
    # The port clients should connect to.
    canonical.port = 4711
  }
}
```

## Including files

Sometimes it can be useful to include another configuration file, for example if you have one `application.conf` with all
environment independent settings and then override some settings for specific environments.

Specifying system property with `-Dconfig.resource=/dev.conf` will load the `dev.conf` file, which includes the `application.conf`

### dev.conf

```
include "application"

akka {
  loglevel = "DEBUG"
}
```

More advanced include and substitution mechanisms are explained in the [HOCON](https://github.com/typesafehub/config/blob/master/HOCON.md)
specification.

<a id="dakka-log-config-on-start"></a>
## Logging of Configuration

If the system or config property `akka.log-config-on-start` is set to `on`, then the
complete configuration is logged at INFO level when the actor system is started. This is
useful when you are uncertain of what configuration is used.

@@@div { .group-scala }

If in doubt, you can inspect your configuration objects
before or after using them to construct an actor system:

```
Welcome to Scala 2.12 (Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM, Java 1.8.0).
Type in expressions to have them evaluated.
Type :help for more information.

scala> import com.typesafe.config._
import com.typesafe.config._

scala> ConfigFactory.parseString("a.b=12")
res0: com.typesafe.config.Config = Config(SimpleConfigObject({"a" : {"b" : 12}}))

scala> res0.root.render
res1: java.lang.String =
{
    # String: 1
    "a" : {
        # String: 1
        "b" : 12
    }
}
```

@@@

The comments preceding every item give detailed information about the origin of
the setting (file & line number) plus possible comments which were present,
e.g. in the reference configuration. The settings as merged with the reference
and parsed by the actor system can be displayed like this:

Scala
: @@snip [ConfigDocSpec.scala](/akka-docs/src/test/scala/docs/config/ConfigDocSpec.scala) { #dump-config }

Java
: @@snip [ConfigDocTest.java](/akka-docs/src/test/java/jdocs/config/ConfigDocTest.java) { #dump-config }


## A Word About ClassLoaders

In several places of the configuration file it is possible to specify the
fully-qualified class name of something to be instantiated by Akka. This is
done using Java reflection, which in turn uses a `ClassLoader`. Getting
the right one in challenging environments like application containers or OSGi
bundles is not always trivial, the current approach of Akka is that each
`ActorSystem` implementation stores the current thread’s context class
loader (if available, otherwise just its own loader as in
`this.getClass.getClassLoader`) and uses that for all reflective accesses.
This implies that putting Akka on the boot class path will yield
`NullPointerException` from strange places: this is not supported.

## Application specific settings

The configuration can also be used for application specific settings.
A good practice is to place those settings in an @ref:[Extension](../extending-akka.md#extending-akka-settings). 

## Configuring multiple ActorSystem

If you have more than one `ActorSystem` (or you're writing a
library and have an `ActorSystem` that may be separate from the
application's) you may want to separate the configuration for each
system.

Given that `ConfigFactory.load()` merges all resources with matching name
from the whole class path, it is easiest to utilize that functionality and
differentiate actor systems within the hierarchy of the configuration:

```
myapp1 {
  akka.loglevel = "WARNING"
  my.own.setting = 43
}
myapp2 {
  akka.loglevel = "ERROR"
  app2.setting = "appname"
}
my.own.setting = 42
my.other.setting = "hello"
```

Scala
: @@snip [ConfigDocSpec.scala](/akka-docs/src/test/scala/docs/config/ConfigDocSpec.scala) { #separate-apps }

Java
: @@snip [ConfigDocTest.java](/akka-docs/src/test/java/jdocs/config/ConfigDocTest.java) { #separate-apps }

These two samples demonstrate different variations of the “lift-a-subtree”
trick: in the first case, the configuration accessible from within the actor
system is this

```ruby
akka.loglevel = "WARNING"
my.own.setting = 43
my.other.setting = "hello"
// plus myapp1 and myapp2 subtrees
```

while in the second one, only the “akka” subtree is lifted, with the following
result

```ruby
akka.loglevel = "ERROR"
my.own.setting = 42
my.other.setting = "hello"
// plus myapp1 and myapp2 subtrees
```

@@@ note

The configuration library is really powerful, explaining all features exceeds
the scope affordable here. In particular not covered are how to include other
configuration files within other files (see a small example at [Including
files](#including-files)) and copying parts of the configuration tree by way of path
substitutions.

@@@

You may also specify and parse the configuration programmatically in other ways when instantiating
the `ActorSystem`.


Scala
: @@snip [ConfigDocSpec.scala](/akka-docs/src/test/scala/docs/config/ConfigDocSpec.scala) { #imports #custom-config }

Java
: @@snip [ConfigDocTest.java](/akka-docs/src/test/java/jdocs/config/ConfigDocTest.java) { #imports #custom-config }


## Reading configuration from a custom location

You can replace or supplement `application.conf` either in code
or using system properties.

If you're using `ConfigFactory.load()` (which Akka does by
default) you can replace `application.conf` by defining
`-Dconfig.resource=whatever`, `-Dconfig.file=whatever`, or
`-Dconfig.url=whatever`.

From inside your replacement file specified with
`-Dconfig.resource` and friends, you can `include
"application"` if you still want to use
`application.{conf,json,properties}` as well.  Settings
specified before `include "application"` would be overridden by
the included file, while those after would override the included
file.

In code, there are many customization options.

There are several overloads of `ConfigFactory.load()`; these
allow you to specify something to be sandwiched between system
properties (which override) and the defaults (from
`reference.conf`), replacing the usual
`application.{conf,json,properties}` and replacing
`-Dconfig.file` and friends.

The simplest variant of `ConfigFactory.load()` takes a resource
basename (instead of `application`); `myname.conf`,
`myname.json`, and `myname.properties` would then be used
instead of `application.{conf,json,properties}`.

The most flexible variant takes a `Config` object, which
you can load using any method in `ConfigFactory`.  For example
you could put a config string in code using
`ConfigFactory.parseString()` or you could make a map and
`ConfigFactory.parseMap()`, or you could load a file.

You can also combine your custom config with the usual config,
that might look like:

Scala
: @@snip [ConfigDocSpec.scala](/akka-docs/src/test/scala/docs/config/ConfigDocSpec.scala) { #custom-config-2 }

Java
: @@snip [ConfigDocTest.java](/akka-docs/src/test/java/jdocs/config/ConfigDocTest.java) { #custom-config-2 }


When working with `Config` objects, keep in mind that there are
three "layers" in the cake:

 * `ConfigFactory.defaultOverrides()` (system properties)
 * the app's settings
 * `ConfigFactory.defaultReference()` (reference.conf)

The normal goal is to customize the middle layer while leaving the
other two alone.

 * `ConfigFactory.load()` loads the whole stack
 * the overloads of `ConfigFactory.load()` let you specify a
different middle layer
 * the `ConfigFactory.parse()` variations load single files or resources

To stack two layers, use `override.withFallback(fallback)`; try
to keep system props (`defaultOverrides()`) on top and
`reference.conf` (`defaultReference()`) on the bottom.

Do keep in mind, you can often just add another `include`
statement in `application.conf` rather than writing code.
Includes at the top of `application.conf` will be overridden by
the rest of `application.conf`, while those at the bottom will
override the earlier stuff.

## Listing of the Reference Configuration

Each Akka module has a reference configuration file with the default values.
Those `reference.conf` files are listed in @ref[Default configuration](configuration-reference.md)
