<sub>(2025/03/09)</sub>
#CouchDB #docker
## Introduction
I run CouchDB in a containerized environment but I had a strange issue where where when a new Docker image of CouchDB was released and deployed in my environment, all of my customized admin users were deleted from my CouchDB instance. The good news was that the data in the database is NOT touched by these updates and the solution to fix this problem was straight forward.
## Solution
What we are going to do is reference the individual admin accounts in a `local.ini` file that is loaded by the CouchDB every time the container is restarted (and updated).
### Compose File Modification
Firstly, we will remove any environmental variables that creates an admin user in our Docker compose file and then we will tell CouchDB to use a `local.ini` file that will be persistent as it is pointed to a Docker volume.
> [!NOTE]
> What happens is that the `local.ini` file overrides the `default.ini` settings used by CouchDB as [mentioned in the documentation](https://github.com/davisp/couchdb/blob/master/etc/couchdb/local.ini) "this file won't be; overwritten on server upgrade."
My previous compose file:
```
services:
couchdb:
image: couchdb
restart: always
ports:
- "5984:5984"
environment:
COUCHDB_USER: XXXX
COUCHDB_PASSWORD: XXXX
volumes:
- /volume1/docker/storage/couchdb/data:/opt/couchdb/data:rw
```
The modified compose file referencing the `local.ini` file:
```
services:
couchdb:
image: couchdb
restart: always
ports:
- "5984:5984"
volumes:
- /volume1/docker/storage/couchdb/data:/opt/couchdb/data:rw
- /volume1/docker/storage/couchdb/local.ini:/opt/couchdb/etc/local.ini
```
### The `local.ini` File
What we will do is create a `local.ini` file based on my file below, or [use the example provided by CouchDB themselves](https://github.com/davisp/couchdb/blob/master/etc/couchdb/local.ini), then modify the `[admins]` section at the bottom of the `local.ini` file listing the customized admins with their accompanying passwords, for example:
```
[admins]
admin1 = YOUR_PASSWORD
admin2 = YOUR_PASSWORD
```
An example of my `local.ini` I had used with the Obsidian Self-hosted LiveSync extension:
```
[couchdb]
single_node = true
max_document_size = 50000000
[chttpd]
require_valid_user = true
max_http_request_size = 4294967296
[chttpd_auth]
require_valid_user = true
authentication_redirect = /_utils/session.html
[httpd]
WWW-Authenticate = Basic realm="couchdb"
enable_cors = true
[cors]
origins = app://obsidian.md,capacitor://localhost,http://localhost,https://YOUR_COUCHDB_URL
credentials = true
headers = accept, authorization, content-type, origin, referer
methods = GET, PUT, POST, HEAD, DELETE
max_age = 3600
[admins]
admin1 = PASSWORD
admin2 = PASSWORD
```