TYPO3_CONF_VARS¶

The main configuration is achieved via a set of global settings stored in a global array called $GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS'].

This chapter describes this global configuration in more details and gives hints to further configuration possibilities.

Note

This variable can be set in one of the following files:

typo3conf/LocalConfiguration.php
typo3conf/AdditionalConfiguration.php

File LocalConfiguration.php¶

The global configuration is stored in file typo3conf/LocalConfiguration.php. This file overrides default settings from typo3/sysext/core/Configuration/DefaultConfiguration.php.

Important

Since configuration settings can be manipulated from within the TYPO3 CMS backend, the typo3conf/LocalConfiguration.php must be writable by the web server user.

The local configuration file is basically a long array which is simply returned when the file is included. It represents the global TYPO3 configuration. This configuration can be modified/extended/overridden by extensions, by setting configuration options inside an extension's ext_localconf.php file. See extension files and locations for more details about extension structure.

A typical content of typo3conf/LocalConfiguration.php looks like this:

<?php
return [
   'BE' => [
      'debug' => true,
      'explicitADmode' => 'explicitAllow',
      'installToolPassword' => '$P$Cbp90UttdtIKELNrDGjy4tDxh3uu9D/',
      'loginSecurityLevel' => 'normal',
   ],
   'DB' => [
      'Connections' => [
         'Default' => [
            'charset' => 'utf8',
            'dbname' => 'empty_typo3',
            'driver' => 'mysqli',
            'host' => '127.0.0.1',
            'password' => 'foo',
            'port' => 3306,
            'user' => 'bar',
         ],
      ],
   ],
   'EXTCONF' => [
       'lang' => [
           'availableLanguages' => [
               'de',
               'eo',
           ],
       ],
   ],
   'EXTENSIONS' => [
       'backend' => [
           'backendFavicon' => '',
           'backendLogo' => '',
           'loginBackgroundImage' => '',
           'loginFootnote' => '',
           'loginHighlightColor' => '',
           'loginLogo' => '',
       ],
       'extensionmanager' => [
           'automaticInstallation' => '1',
           'offlineMode' => '0',
       ],
       'scheduler' => [
           'maxLifetime' => '1440',
           'showSampleTasks' => '1',
       ],
   ],
   'FE' => [
      'debug' => true,
      'loginSecurityLevel' => 'normal',
   ],
   'GFX' => [
      'jpg_quality' => '80',
   ],
   'MAIL' => [
      'transport_sendmail_command' => '/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i ',
   ],
   'SYS' => [
      'devIPmask' => '*',
      'displayErrors' => 1,
      'encryptionKey' => '0396e1b6b53bf48b0bfed9e97a62744158452dfb9b9909fe32d4b7a709816c9b4e94dcd69c011f989d322cb22309f2f2',
      'exceptionalErrors' => 28674,
      'sitename' => 'New TYPO3 site',
   ],
];

As you can see, the array is structured on two main levels. The first level corresponds roughly to a category, the second one being properties, which may themselves be arrays.

The configuration categories are:

BE: Options related to the TYPO3 backend.
DB: Database connection configuration.
EXT: Extension installation options.
EXTCONF: Backend-related language pack configuration resides here.
EXTENSIONS: Extension configuration.
FE: Frontend-related options.
GFX: Options related to image manipulation..
HTTP: Settings for tuning HTTP requests made by TYPO3.
LOG: Configuration of the logging system.
MAIL: Options related to the sending of emails (transport, server, etc.).
SVCONF: Service API configuration.
SYS: General options which may affect both the frontend and the backend.
T3_SERVICES: Service registration configuration and the backend.

Further details on the various configuration options can be found in the Admin Tools module as well as the TYPO3 source at EXT:core/Configuration/DefaultConfigurationDescription.yaml. The documentation shown in the Admin Tools module is automatically extracted from those values of DefaultConfigurationDescription.yaml.

The Admin Tools module provides various dedicated sections that change parts of LocalConfiguration.php, those can be found in Admin Tools > Settings, most importantly section Configure installation-wide options:

Configure installation-wide options Admin Tools > Settings¶

../../_images/InstallationWideOptions.png

Configure installation-wide options with an active search¶

File AdditionalConfiguration.php¶

Although you can manually edit the typo3conf/LocalConfiguration.php file, it is limited in scope because the file is expected to return a PHP array. Also the file is rewritten every time an option is changed in the Install Tool or some other operation (like changing an extension configuration in the Extension Manager). Thus custom code cannot reside in that file.

Such code should be placed in the typo3conf/AdditionalConfiguration.php file. This file is never touched by TYPO3, so any code will be left alone.

Furthermore this file is loaded after typo3conf/LocalConfiguration.php, which means it represents an opportunity to change global configuration values programmatically if needed.

typo3conf/AdditionalConfiguration.php is a plain PHP file. There are no specific rules about what it may contain. However, since the code is included on every request to TYPO3 - whether frontend or backend - you should avoid inserting code which requires a lot of processing time.

Example: Changing the database hostname for development machines

typo3conf/AdditionalConfiguration.php¶

<?php

$applicationContext = \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Core\Environment::getContext();
if ($applicationContext->isDevelopment()) {
    $GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['DB']['Connections']['Default']['host'] = 'mysql-be';
}

File DefaultConfiguration.php¶

TYPO3 comes with some default settings, which are defined in file EXT:core/Configuration/DefaultConfiguration.php.

This is the base configuration, the other files like LocalConfiguration.php just overlay it.

Here is an extract of that file:

return [
    'GFX' => [
        'thumbnails' => true,
        'thumbnails_png' => true,
        'gif_compress' => true,
        'imagefile_ext' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,tif,tiff,bmp,pcx,tga,png,pdf,ai,svg',
        // ...
    ],
    // ...
];

It is certainly interesting to take a look into this file, which also contains values that are not displayed in the Install Tool and therefore cannot be changed easily.