Hosting FAQs
This article contains Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) regarding self-hosting.
A: Bitwarden is a cross-platform application that is deployed using Docker Linux containers. This means that Bitwarden can be hosted on Linux, macOS, and Windows machines.
Docker Desktop on Windows may require a license depending on whether your company meets Docker's requirements for licenses, however Docker on Linux is free.
You can read more about Docker and container technologies at the Docker website.
A: Bitwarden is generally deployed as either a single Windows or Linux VM, or a cluster of machines. At this time, Bitwarden does not publish pre-built images for these platforms, but you can find instructions on how to configure a VM on all of the above platforms and more here.
A: Bitwarden customers may utilize the Helm deployment option to achieve high-availability in self-hosted environments. Horizontal scaling can occur on the ingress resource. Learn more about Bitwarden self-hosting with Helm here.
A: In order to allow the server to push notifications to Bitwarden clients, you will need to allow the following URLs through your firewall:
api.bitwarden.com
push.bitwarden.com
tip
You don't have to use push notifications if allowing these URLs won't work for your environment.
A: Bitwarden takes automated nightly backups of the bitwarden-mssql
database container in order to protect your stored credentials. For help with manual backups, or help restoring a backup, see Backup your Hosted Data.
A: Installation ids keys are used when installing Bitwarden on-premises in order to:
Register your installation and contain email so that we can contact you for important security updates.
Authenticate to push relay servers for push notifications to Bitwarden client applications.
Validate licensing of paid features.
Retrieve an installation id and key from https://bitwarden.com/host.
note
While retrieving your installation Id and Key, be sure to select the server region that corresponds to your Bitwarden client. Learn how to apply the proper self-hosted server region here.
You should not share your installation id or installation key across multiple Bitwarden installations. They should be treated as secrets.
A: Configure the url:
in the ./bwdata/config.yml
with your new server name and the run the ./bitwarden.sh
rebuild command to rebuild bwdata
assets.
Check that your server name or FQDN has been proliferated to all globalSettings_baseServiceUri__*
variables in ./bwdata/env/global.override.env
, and that your certificate contains a Subject Alternative Name (SAN) with the new server FQDN
If you are using Let's Encrypt certificate, you will need to manually update your certificate.
A: First, change the name of the organization in the cloud using the web app. Once the cloud organization has been changed, you can re-download the license file and upload the new license file to your self-hosted organization as seen here.
Q: Why does the System Administrator Portal show an update available when update commands show I'm on the latest version?
A: The System Administrator Portal will show an available update as soon as we release our cloud server, however as mentioned in the release notes, self-hosted server updates typically are made available a few days following cloud. Please wait a few days and try updating your instance again.
A: Running Bitwarden under a domain subfolder (for example, https://mydomain.com/bitwarden
instead of https://mydomain.com
) is not supported. It must run under a host, as a subdomain, or with an additional port.
A: Connect your self-hosted instance to an existing SMTP mail server by editing all globalSettings__mail__smtp__*
values in ./bwdata/env/global.override.env
. For more information, see Configure Environment Variables.
If you don't yet have an existing SMTP mail server from which you can relay emails, consider services like Mailgun or SparkPost.
warning
Starting in autumn of 2024, apps like Bitwarden using Gmail for SMTP will be required to use app passwords for authentication as basic authentication (username and password) support will be deprecated.
We recommend migrating your SMTP configuration to an app password as soon as possible. Learn more about the change.
A: Configure the following variables in ./bwdata/env/global.override.env
:
BashglobalSettings__mail__replyToEmail=no-reply@your.domain globalSettings__mail__smtp__host=smtp.gmail.com globalSettings__mail__smtp__port=587 globalSettings__mail__smtp__ssl=false globalSettings__mail__smtp__username=<valid-gmail-username> globalSettings__mail__smtp__password=<valid-app-password>
You will also need to enable SMTP relay from within Google. For more information, see Google's documentation.
A: To use custom ports, instead of 80 and 443, edit the http_port=
and https_port=
values in ./bwdata/config.yml
and run ./bitwarden.sh rebuild
to rebuild your server assets.
Check that the custom port values have been proliferated to ./bwdata/env/global.override.env
.
Suggest changes to this page
How can we improve this page for you?
For technical, billing, and product questions, please contact support