Why VAULT_ADDR?

[Amy Brown]

Good afternoon,

I'm running vault with a file backend and a TCP listener on ArchLinux and Windows 2012 test boxes. 

My config file looks something like this on ArchLinux:

backend "file" {

  path = "/home/user/vdata"

  }

listener "tcp" {

 address = "0.0.0.0:8200"

 tls_disable = 1

}

disable_mlock = true

I've found that setting the VAULT_ADDR environment variable is absolutely necessary both on ArchLinux and Windows 2012. 

Without the variable set, you can't even run vault status. 

Why is this? It seems that vault... should see that it's running?

[Michael Fischer]

The environment variable isn't the only way to tell the Vault client where the server is.  You can also pass the `-address` argument to the vault client command line.

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[Jeff Mitchell]

Hi Amy,

Michael is correct about -address, but I think the sort of deeper
answer to your question is that Vault the binary can act as either a
server or a CLI to talk to a server instance. Only the server instance
reads the configuration file. Client configuration is performed
through environment variables or CLI flags.

Best,
Jeff

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/vault-tool/CABHxtY7_begKKRuQYLdJZB2vXnJJY2jhnJhDTUsSaKC6QNNyig%40mail.gmail.com.

[David Adams]

The default vault address in the `vault` command line tool is `https://127.0.0.1:8200` but in the typical first-run setup without SSL, as you've configured, you have to override that to `http://127.0.0.1:8200` (or some equivalent).

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