---
title: "System Console settings"
---
import useBaseUrl from '@docusaurus/useBaseUrl';

<PlanAvailability slug="all-commercial" />

System admins for both self-hosted and Cloud Mattermost deployments can manage Mattermost configuration using the System Console by selecting the **Product** <img src={useBaseUrl('/img/ui/products_E82F.svg')} alt="Navigate between Channels, collaborative playbooks, and boards using the product menu icon." className="theme-icon" /> menu and selecting **System Console**.

<Note>

- In self-hosted Mattermost deployments, configuration settings are maintained in the `config.json` configuration file, located in the `mattermost/config` directory, or [stored in the database](/administration-guide/configure/configuration-in-your-database). System admins managing self-hosted deployments can also modify the `config.json` file directly using a text editor.
- Mattermost requires write permissions to the `config.json` file; otherwise, configuration changes made within the System Console will have no effect.

</Note>

Mattermost configuration settings are organized into the following categories within the System Console:

- [Site configuration settings](/administration-guide/configure/site-configuration-settings)
- [Authentication configuration settings](/administration-guide/configure/authentication-configuration-settings)
- [User management configuration settings](/administration-guide/configure/user-management-configuration-settings)
- [System attributes](/administration-guide/configure/system-attributes)
- [Environment configuration settings](/administration-guide/configure/environment-configuration-settings)
- [Reporting configuration settings](/administration-guide/configure/reporting-configuration-settings)
- [Compliance configuration settings](/administration-guide/configure/compliance-configuration-settings)
- [Integrations configuration settings](/administration-guide/configure/integrations-configuration-settings)
- [Plugins configuration settings](/administration-guide/configure/plugins-configuration-settings)
- [Self-hosted workspace edition and license settings](/administration-guide/configure/self-hosted-account-settings)
- [Cloud workspace subscription, billing, and account settings](/administration-guide/configure/cloud-billing-account-settings)
- [Experimental configuration settings](/administration-guide/configure/experimental-configuration-settings)
- [Deprecated configuration settings](/administration-guide/configure/deprecated-configuration-settings)

Search is configured outside the System Console settings pages above. See [Bleve search](/administration-guide/configure/bleve-search) for the built-in search engine, and the [deployment guide](/deployment-guide/scale/elasticsearch-setup) for Elasticsearch and OpenSearch.

## Configuration in database

Self-hosted system configuration can be stored in the database. This changes the Mattermost binary from reading the default `config.json` file to reading the configuration settings stored within a configuration table in the database. See the [Mattermost database configuration](/administration-guide/configure/configuration-in-your-database) documentation for migration details.

## Environment variables

You can use [environment variables](/administration-guide/configure/environment-variables) to manage Mattermost configuration for self-hosted deployments. Environment variables override settings in `config.json`. If a change to a setting in `config.json` requires a restart to take effect, then changes to the corresponding environment variable also require a server restart.

## Configuration reload

In self-hosted deployments, the “config watcher”, the mechanism that automatically reloads the `config.json` file, has been deprecated in favor of the [mmctl config reload](/administration-guide/manage/mmctl-command-line-tool#mmctl-config-reload) command that you must run to apply configuration changes you've made. This improves configuration performance and robustness.

## Deprecated configuration settings

See the [deprecated configuration settings documentation](/administration-guide/configure/deprecated-configuration-settings) for details on all deprecated Mattermost configuration settings that are no longer supported.