@@ -221,6 +222,27 @@ Instructions can be found in the [Amazon RDS User Guide](http://docs.aws.amazon.
Simply follow the same instructions you would use for making any normal database backup. It's a large topic more fit for a DBA to answer, but as long as you have a dump of the Metabase database you'll be good to go.
# Storing database connection details more securely
Metabase stores connection information for the various databases you add in the Metabase application database. To prevent bad actors from being able to access these details if they were to gain access to
the application database, Metabase can automatically encrypt them when they are saved, and decrypt them on-the-fly whenever they are needed. The only thing you need to do is set the environment variable
`MB_ENCRYPTION_SECRET_KEY`.
Your secret key must be at least 16 characters (longer is even better!), and we recommend using a secure random key generator to generate it. `openssl` is a good choice:
openssl rand -base64 32
This gives you a cryptographically-secure, randomly-generated 32-character key that will look something like `IYqrSi5QDthvFWe4/WdAxhnra5DZC3RKx3ZSrOJDKsM=`. Then set it as an environment variable and
Metabase will then securely encrypt and store the connection details for any new Databases you add. (Connection details for existing databases will be encrypted as well if you save them in the admin panel).
Existing databases with unencrypted details will continue to work normally.
Take care not to lose this key, because you can't decrypt connection details without it. If you lose (or change) it, you'll have to reset all of the databases connection details that have been encrypted with it in the Admin Panel.
# Customizing the Metabase Jetty webserver
In most cases there will be no reason to modify any of the settings around how Metabase runs its embedded Jetty webserver to host the application, but if you wish to run HTTPS directly with your Metabase server or if you need to run on another port, that's all configurable.
