Environment variables

ARender services are Spring Boot applications. Any Spring Boot property can be overridden via an environment variable using a per-service prefix.

How Spring Boot externalized configuration works

Spring Boot maps environment variables to property names using a relaxed binding algorithm. For ARender services, each service has a custom environment variable prefix that scopes its configuration. The prefix prevents collisions when multiple services share the same host or pod environment.

The resolution order from lowest to highest priority:

1. Defaults compiled into the application JAR
2. application.properties or application.yml files on the classpath
3. External config files (e.g. mounted application.yml)
4. Environment variables

Naming convention

Service prefixes

Each service uses a prefix. All environment variable names must be uppercase.

Service	Container image	Prefix
Viewer	arender-ui-springboot	ARENDERSRV_
Document Service Broker	arender-document-service-broker	DSB_
Document Converter	arender-document-converter	DCV_
Document Renderer	arender-document-renderer-pdfowl	DRN_
Document Text Handler	arender-document-text-handler	DTH_

warning

Native Spring Boot properties (e.g., spring.security.oauth2.*) must not be prefixed with ARENDERSRV_, otherwise they won't be taken into account or not properly used/detected at the right time. Only ARender-specific properties (e.g., arender.server.*) use the ARENDERSRV_ prefix.

Property-to-variable mapping rules

1. Write the full property path in uppercase.
2. A capital letter in the property key must be preceded by . in the environment variable name.
3. Use _ to separate nested YAML keys.
4. Use [n] to set a list element at index n.

Example: nested YAML property

eureka:
  instance:
    metadata:
      map:
        host:
          name: document-converter

Becomes:

DCV_EUREKA_INSTANCE_METADATA.MAP_HOST.NAME=document-converter

The .MAP and .NAME notation reflects that map and name contain uppercase letters when written as metadataMap and hostName in Spring internals. Follow this pattern for any camelCase property key segment.

Example: simple property override

The property arender.server.oauth2.enabled on the viewer becomes:

ARENDERSRV_ARENDER_SERVER_OAUTH2_ENABLED=true

Example: property with a camelCase segment

The property spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.arender.client-id becomes:

SPRING_SECURITY_OAUTH2_CLIENT_REGISTRATION_ARENDER_CLIENT_ID=arender-client

Note that native Spring Boot properties like spring.security.* do not use the ARENDERSRV_ prefix.

note

When in doubt about a specific property, check the broker Swagger UI at http://{broker-host}:8761/swagger-ui/index.html or refer to the Rendition properties for exact property names.

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Docker Compose

In a Docker Compose file, set environment variables under the environment key for each service.

Minimal working configuration

docker-compose.yml

services:
  ui:
    image: artifactory.arondor.cloud:5001/arender-ui-springboot
    environment:
      - "ARENDERSRV_ARENDER_SERVER_RENDITION_HOSTS=http://service-broker:8761/"

  service-broker:
    image: artifactory.arondor.cloud:5001/arender-document-service-broker
    environment:
      - "DSB_KUBEPROVIDER_KUBE.HOSTS_DOCUMENT-CONVERTER=19999"
      - "DSB_KUBEPROVIDER_KUBE.HOSTS_DOCUMENT-RENDERER=9091"
      - "DSB_KUBEPROVIDER_KUBE.HOSTS_DOCUMENT-TEXT-HANDLER=8899"

  document-converter:
    image: artifactory.arondor.cloud:5001/arender-document-converter
    environment:
      - "DCV_EUREKA_INSTANCE_METADATA.MAP_HOST.NAME=document-converter"
      - "DCV_APP_EUREKA_HOSTNAME=service-broker"
      - "DCV_APP_EUREKA_PORT=8761"

  document-renderer:
    image: artifactory.arondor.cloud:5001/arender-document-renderer-pdfowl
    environment:
      - "DRN_EUREKA_INSTANCE_METADATA.MAP_HOST.NAME=document-renderer"
      - "DRN_EUREKA_INSTANCE_HOSTNAME=service-broker"
      - "DRN_EUREKA_SERVER_PORT=8761"

  document-text-handler:
    image: artifactory.arondor.cloud:5001/arender-document-text-handler
    environment:
      - "DTH_EUREKA_INSTANCE_METADATA.MAP_HOST.NAME=document-text-handler"
      - "DTH_EUREKA_INSTANCE_HOSTNAME=service-broker"
      - "DTH_EUREKA_SERVER_PORT=8761"

Common overrides

Change the broker port:

service-broker:
  environment:
    - "DSB_SERVER_PORT=9000"

Enable PDF Portfolio detection:

service-broker:
  environment:
    - "DSB_ARENDER_SERVER_DOCUMENT_PDF_PORTFOLIO_ENABLED=true"

Increase conversion memory limit on the broker:

service-broker:
  environment:
    - "DSB_ARENDER_CONVERSION_MEMORY=2048m"
    - "DSB_ARENDER_JNIRENDERER_MEMORY=2048m"
    - "DSB_ARENDER_PDFBOX_MEMORY=2048m"

Override the LibreOffice conversion timeout:

document-converter:
  environment:
    - "DCV_SOFFICE_CONVERSION_TIMEOUT=300"

Activate DirectOffice for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint:

document-converter:
  environment:
    - "DCV_MIMETYPE_SUPPORT_DIRECTOFFICE=<word,excel,powerpoint MIME types>"
    - "DCV_MIMETYPE_SUPPORT_LIBREOFFICE=<remaining formats: RTF, ODF, Visio, Project>"

See the Office conversion guide for the full list of MIME types.

Enable OAuth2 on the viewer:

ui:
  environment:
    - "ARENDERSRV_ARENDER_SERVER_OAUTH2_ENABLED=true"
    - "SPRING_SECURITY_OAUTH2_CLIENT_REGISTRATION_ARENDER_CLIENT_ID=arender-client"
    - "SPRING_SECURITY_OAUTH2_CLIENT_REGISTRATION_ARENDER_CLIENT_SECRET=your-secret"
    - "SPRING_SECURITY_OAUTH2_CLIENT_REGISTRATION_ARENDER_PROVIDER=keycloak"
    - "SPRING_SECURITY_OAUTH2_CLIENT_REGISTRATION_ARENDER_AUTHORIZATION_GRANT_TYPE=authorization_code"
    - "SPRING_SECURITY_OAUTH2_CLIENT_REGISTRATION_ARENDER_SCOPE=openid"

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Kubernetes (Helm)

The ARender Helm charts support environment variable injection at two levels: a shared ConfigMap and per-service values.yaml overrides.

Helm chart structure

Two charts are available:

Chart	Path	Purpose
rendition	helm/rendition/	Deploys broker, converter, renderer, and text handler
viewer	helm/viewer/	Deploys the viewer

Passing environment variables via values.yaml

Each service in the rendition chart accepts an environment map under its key:

values.yaml

# helm/rendition/values.yaml (excerpt)
broker:
  environment:
    PROVIDER_ENVIRONMENT: LOCAL

converter:
  environment:
    DCV_SOFFICE_CONVERSION_TIMEOUT: "300"

renderer:
  environment: {}

handler:
  environment: {}

The viewer chart uses a flat environment map:

values.yaml

# helm/viewer/values.yaml (excerpt)
environment:
  ARENDERSRV_ARENDER_SERVER_OAUTH2_ENABLED: "true"

Broker service discovery in Kubernetes

The broker discovers rendition services using DNS names resolved from Kubernetes service names. The ConfigMap template (configmap-broker.yaml) generates the following structure automatically based on chart values:

configmap-broker.yaml

kubeprovider:
  kubeHosts:
    {release-name}-converter.{namespace}.svc.cluster.local: 19999
    {release-name}-renderer.{namespace}.svc.cluster.local: 9091
    {release-name}-handler.{namespace}.svc.cluster.local: 8899

The broker PROVIDER_ENVIRONMENT variable controls how service addresses are resolved:

Value	Behavior
LOCAL	Resolve services by hostname from the kubeHosts map
KUBERNETES	Use Kubernetes API to discover services (requires RBAC)

Injecting secrets

Use envFrom to mount a Kubernetes Secret as environment variables:

values.yaml

broker:
  envFrom:
    - secretRef:
        name: arender-broker-secrets

The Secret would contain values such as:

arender-broker-secrets.yaml

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: arender-broker-secrets
stringData:
  DSB_ARENDER_URL_BASIC_AUTH: "domain1@secret1,domain2@secret2"

Injecting a custom application.yml

The config.file.extraConfig field in each service's values appends raw YAML to the generated application.yml ConfigMap:

values.yaml

broker:
  config:
    file:
      extraConfig: |
        arender:
          server:
            annotations:
              can:
                create: false

This is useful for multi-line or complex properties that are awkward to express as a single environment variable.

Viewer rendition hosts

The viewer chart provides a dedicated rendition.hosts list that generates the ARENDERSRV_ARENDER_SERVER_RENDITION_HOSTS variable automatically:

values.yaml

rendition:
  hosts:
    - http://arender-broker.arender.svc.cluster.local:8761/

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Summary table

Deployment	Method	Example
Docker Compose	environment: list in service block	- "DCV_SOFFICE_CONVERSION_TIMEOUT=300"
Kubernetes (Helm)	environment: map under service key	DCV_SOFFICE_CONVERSION_TIMEOUT: "300"
Kubernetes (Helm)	envFrom: with Secret	Mount arender-broker-secrets
Kubernetes (Helm)	config.file.extraConfig	Inject raw YAML into application.yml
Spring Boot (JAR)	OS environment or -D JVM flags	DSB_SERVER_PORT=9000

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Related pages

• Rendition properties
• Docker Compose
• Kubernetes Helm