Run a single-node, on-disk server

For the purposes of getting started with SurrealDB quickly, we will start a RocksDB database which persists data on the filesystem. This configuration is great for trying out the database and small deployments.

user@localhost % surreal start file:mydatabase.db

The default logging level for the database server is info, resulting in any informational logs to be output to the standard output. To control the logging verbosity, specify the --log argument. The following command starts the database with trace level logging, resulting in most logs being output to the terminal.

user@localhost % surreal start --log trace file:mydatabase.db

In order to keep SurrealDB secure, the database disables root-level authentication if a password is not set. To set a root-level authentication login, use the --user and --pass command-line arguments. The following command starts the database with a top-level user named root with a password also set to root.

user@localhost % surreal start --log trace --user root --pass root file:mydatabase.db

In order to change the default port that SurrealDB uses for web connections and from database clients you can use the --bind argument. The following command starts the database on port 8080.

user@localhost % surreal start --log trace --user root --pass root --bind 0.0.0.0:8080 file://path/to/mydatabase

After running the above command, you should see the SurrealDB server startup successfully.

user@localhost % surreal start --log trace --user root --pass root --bind 0.0.0.0:8080 file:mydatabase.db
[2023-04-03 08:45:42] INFO  surrealdb::iam Root authentication is enabled
[2023-04-03 08:45:42] INFO  surrealdb::iam Root username is 'root'
[2023-04-03 08:45:42] INFO  surrealdb::dbs Database strict mode is disabled
[2023-04-03 08:45:42] INFO  surrealdb::kvs Starting kvs store in file:mydatabase.db
[2023-04-03 08:45:42] INFO  surrealdb::kvs Started kvs store in file:mydatabase.db
[2023-04-03 08:45:42] INFO  surrealdb::net Starting web server on 0.0.0.0:8080
[2023-04-03 08:45:42] INFO  surrealdb::net Started web server on 0.0.0.0:8080

For details on the start command, and all of the available configuration options and arguments, view the start command documentation.