The Server is divided into a number of services. Each service is a Visual Studio project in the Server solution. These are:
* Admin
* Api
* Icons
* Identity
* Notifications
* SQL
Each service is built and run separately. The Bitwarden clients can use different servers for different services.
This means that you don't need to run all services locally for a development environment. You can run only those services that you intend to modify, and use Bitwarden.com or a self-hosted instance for all other services required.
By default some of the services depends on the Bitwarden licensed `CommCore`, however it can easily be disabled by including the `/p:DefineConstants="OSS"` as an argument to `dotnet`.
This guide will show you how to set up the Api, Identity and SQL projects for development. These are the minimum projects for any development work. You may need to set up additional projects depending on the changes you want to make.
We recommend using [Visual Studio](https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/), and [PowerShell](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/install/installing-powershell?view=powershell-7.1) which is used for the helper scripts.
To simplify the setup process we provide a [Docker Compose](https://docs.docker.com/compose/) application model. This is split up into multiple service profiles to facilitate easily customization.
We recommend changing the `MSSQL_PASSWORD` variable in `dev/.env` to avoid exposing the sqlserver with a default password. **Note**: changing this after first running docker compose may require a re-creation of the storage volume. To do this, stop the running containers and run `docker volume rm bitwardenserver_mssql_dev_data`. (**Warning:** this will delete your development database.)
We provide a helper script which will create the development database `vault_dev` and also run all migrations. This command should be run after starting docker the first time, as well as after syncing against upstream and after creating a new migration.
**Note:** If all or many migrations are skipped even though this is a new database, make sure that there is not a `last_migration` file located in `dev/.data/mssql`. If there is, remove it and run the helper script again. This can happen if you create the database, run migrations, then delete it.
[Azurite](https://github.com/Azure/Azurite) is a emulator for Azure Storage API and supports Blob, Queues and Table storage. We use it to avoid a hard dependency on online services for cloud development.
Since the server uses emails for many user interactions a working SMTP server is a requirement, we provide a pre-setup instance of [MailCatcher](https://mailcatcher.me/) which exposes a web interface at http://localhost:1080.
We provide a helper script which will generate and add the certificates to the users Certificate Store. After running the script it will output the thumbprints needed for the next step. The certificates can later be accessed using `certml.msc` under `Personal/Certificates`.
User secrets are a method for managing application settings on a per-developer basis. They are stored outside of the local git repository so that they are not pushed to remote.
User secrets override the settings in `appsettings.json` of each project. Your user secrets file should match the structure of the `appsettings.json` file for the settings you intend to override.
For more information, see: [Safe storage of app secrets in development in ASP.NET Core](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/security/app-secrets?view=aspnetcore-5.0).
### Automated Helper script
We provide a helper scripts which simplifies setting user secrets for all projects in the repository.
Start by copying the `secret.json.example` file to `secrets.json` and modify the existing settings and add any other required setting. Afterwards run the following command which will add the settings to each project in the bitwarden repository.
It is also possible to manually create and modify the user secrets using either the `dotnet` CLI or `Visual Studio` on Windows. For more details see [Appendix A](#user-secrets).
**selfhosted**: It is highly recommended that you use the `selfHosted: true` setting when running a local development environment. This tells the system not to use cloud services, assuming that you are running your own local SQL instance.
**sqlServer__connectionString**: this provides the information required for the Server to connect to the SQL instance. See the example connection string in `secrets.json.example`. You may need to change the default password in the connection string.
**installation__key** and **installation__id**: request your own private Installation Id and Installation Key for self-hosting: https://bitwarden.com/host/.
## Running and Debugging
After you have completed the above steps, you should be ready to launch your development environment for the Api and Identity projects.
### Visual Studio
To debug:
* On Windows, right-click on each project > click **Debug** > click **Start New Instance**
* On MacOS, right-click each project > click **Start Debugging Project**
To run without debugging, open a terminal and navigate to the location of the .csproj file for that project (usually in `src/ProjectName`). Start the project with:
```bash
dotnet run
```
NOTE: check the output of the running project to find the port it is listening on. If this is different to the default in `appsettings.json`, you may need to update your user secrets to override this (typically the Api user secrets for the Identity URL).
### Rider
From within Rider, launch both the Api project and the Identity project by clicking the "play" button for each project separately.
### Testing your deployment
* To test the deployment of each project, navigate to the following pages in your browser. You should see server output and no errors:
* Test the Api deployment: http://localhost:4000/alive
* Test the Identity deployment: http://localhost:33656/.well-known/openid-configuration
* If your test was successful, you can connect a GUI client to the dev environment by following the instructions here: [Change your client application's environment](https://bitwarden.com/help/article/change-client-environment/). If you are following this guide, you should only set the API Server URL and Identity Server URL to localhost:port and leave all other fields blank.
* If you are using the CLI client, you will also need to set the Node environment variables for your self-signed certificates by following the instructions here: [The Bitwarden command-line tool (CLI) > Self-signed certificates](https://bitwarden.com/help/article/cli/#self-signed-certificates).
### Troubleshooting
* If you get a 404 error, the projects may be listening on a non-default port. Check the output of your running projects to check the port they are listening on.
# <a name="user-secrets"></a>Appendix A (User Secrets)
### Editing user secrets - Visual Studio on Windows
Right-click on the project in the Solution Explorer and click **Manage User Secrets**.
### Editing user secrets - Visual Studio on macOS
Open a terminal and navigate to the project directory. Once there, initiate and create the blank user secrets file by running:
```bash
dotnet user-secrets init
```
Add a user secret by running:
```bash
dotnet user-secrets set "<key>" "<value>"
```
View currently set secrets by running:
```bash
dotnet user-secrets list
```
By default, user secret files are located in `~/.microsoft/usersecrets/<project name>/secrets.json`. After the file has been created, you can edit this directly with VSCode, which is much easier than using the command line tool.
### Editing user secrets - Rider
* Navigate to **Preferences -> Plugins** and Install .NET Core User Secrets
* Right click on the a project and click **Tools** > **Open project user secrets**
