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    umbracoSettings

    Here you will be able to find documentation on all the options you can modify in the umbracoSettings.config file.

    Backoffice

    Below you can see the settings that affect the Umbraco Backoffice.

    Tours

    The section is used for controlling the Backoffice tours functionality.

    <backOffice>
        <tours enable="true"></tours>
    </backOffice>
    

    There is only one supported attribute on the tours element:

    enable By default this is set to true. Set it to false to turn off Backoffice tours

    Content

    Below you can see settings that affects content in Umbraco.

    Cleanup policy (available on Umbraco version 8.18)

    The global settings for the scheduled job which cleans up historic content versions. These settings can be overridden per Document Type.

    Current draft and published versions will never be removed, nor will individual content versions which have been marked as "preventCleanup".

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
    <settings>
      <content>
        <!-- Add contentVersionCleanupPolicyGlobalSettings in the content section -->
        <contentVersionCleanupPolicyGlobalSettings 
          enable="true" 
          keepAllVersionsNewerThanDays="7" 
          keepLatestVersionPerDayForDays="90" />
      </content>
    <settings>

    If you don't wish to retain any content versions except for the current draft and currently published you can set both of the "keep" settings values to 0, after which the next time the scheduled job runs (hourly) all non-current versions (except those marked "prevent cleanup") will be removed.

    See the Content Version Cleanup article for Umbraco 10+ for more details on the feature.

    Obsolete data types

    This section is used for controlling whether or not the Data Types marked as obsolete should be visible in the dropdown when creating new Data Types.

    <showDeprecatedPropertyEditors>false</showDeprecatedPropertyEditors>
    

    enable By default this is set to false. To make the obsolete Data Types visible in the dropdown change the value to true.

    Imaging

    This section is used for managing thumbnail creation and which properties of an image that should be automatically updated on upload.

    <imaging>
        <!-- what file extension that should cause Umbraco to create thumbnails -->
        <imageFileTypes>jpeg,jpg,gif,bmp,png,tiff,tif</imageFileTypes>
        <!-- automatically updates dimension, file size and extension attributes on upload -->
        <autoFillImageProperties>
            <uploadField alias="umbracoFile">
                <widthFieldAlias>umbracoWidth</widthFieldAlias>
                <heightFieldAlias>umbracoHeight</heightFieldAlias>
                <lengthFieldAlias>umbracoBytes</lengthFieldAlias>
                <extensionFieldAlias>umbracoExtension</extensionFieldAlias>
            </uploadField>
        </autoFillImageProperties>
    </imaging>
    

    Let's break it down.

    <imageFileTypes> As the comment above states, this is a comma separated list of accepted image formats, which Umbraco can create a thumbnail of the image from.

    <autoFillImageProperties> As the comment above states, you can define what properties should be automatically updated when an image is being uploaded. This means that if you decide to rename the default umbracoWidth and umbracoHeight properties to width and height then the values in <widthFieldAlias> and <heightFieldAlias> need to be updated with the new property aliases. This needs to happen in order to automatically populate the values when the image is being uploaded.

    If you need to create a custom media Document Type to handle images called something like "Custom Image" width an alias of customImage then you need to add another <uploadField> element where the alias is set to customImage. Like below. Note that the width and height attributes has also been changed in this example.

    <imaging>
        <!-- what file extension that should cause Umbraco to create thumbnails -->
        <imageFileTypes>jpeg,jpg,gif,bmp,png,tiff,tif</imageFileTypes>
        <!-- automatically updates dimension, file size and extension attributes on upload -->
        <autoFillImageProperties>
            <uploadField alias="umbracoFile">
                <widthFieldAlias>umbracoWidth</widthFieldAlias>
                <heightFieldAlias>umbracoHeight</heightFieldAlias>
                <lengthFieldAlias>umbracoBytes</lengthFieldAlias>
                <extensionFieldAlias>umbracoExtension</extensionFieldAlias>
            </uploadField>
            **<uploadField alias="customImage">**
                **<widthFieldAlias>width</widthFieldAlias>**
                **<heightFieldAlias>height</heightFieldAlias>**
                <lengthFieldAlias>umbracoBytes</lengthFieldAlias>
                <extensionFieldAlias>umbracoExtension</extensionFieldAlias>
            </uploadField>
        </autoFillImageProperties>
    </imaging>
    

    Errors

    In case of a 404 error (page not found), Umbraco can return a default page instead. You can also set a different error page, based on the current culture so a 404 page can be returned in the correct language.

    You can customize the error pages using the customErrors or errors section in the web.config file.

    Let's take a look at an example: You have a single site that should display a custom 404 page in case of exceptions.

    To set-up a custom 404 page, do the following:

    1. Update the customErrors section in the web.config file
    2. Create Custom Error Pages
    3. Specify the Node where the Page should be displayed when there's an Exception
    4. Set the appropriate Response and Status Code

    Update the customErrors section in the web.config file

    To use the custom error page by specifying the URL of the error page, add the following markup to your web.config file:

    <system.web>
        <customErrors mode="On" defaultRedirect="~/ErrorPages/404.aspx" redirectMode="ResponseRewrite" />
    </system.web>
    

    The redirectMode will show the error page on the same request instead of redirecting it.

    Create Custom Error Pages

    You need to create 404.aspx for ASP.NET and 404.html for IIS in your site. For example purposes, both my custom pages look similar:

    <!DOCTYPE html>
      <html lang="en">
        <head>
            <meta charset="utf-8"/>
            <title>404 Page Not Found</title>
        </head>
        <body>
            <h1>404 Page Not Found</h1>
            <h2> Looks like you're lost </h2>
            <div class="media-small" data-index="0">
                <img alt="404 Error Page" width="80" height="60" src="assets/img/404.png" />
            </div>
        </body>
      </html>
    

    Specify the Node where the Page should be displayed when there's an Exception

    1. Lets add the node details in the umbracoSettings.config file:

      <settings>
          <content>
              <errors>
                  <!--
                      The value for error pages can be:
                      * A content item's GUID ID      (example: 26C1D84F-C900-4D53-B167-E25CC489DAC8)
                      * An XPath statement            (example: //errorPages[@nodeName='My cool error'])
                      * A content item's integer ID   (example: 1066)
                  -->
                  <!--
                      <error404>
                          <errorPage culture="default">26C1D84F-C900-4D53-B167-E25CC489DAC8</errorPage>
                          <errorPage culture="en-US">D820E120-6865-4D88-BFFE-48801A6AC375</errorPage>
                      </error404>
                  -->
                  <error404>1066</error404>
              </errors>
          </content>
      </settings>
      

      You can specify the node in three ways:

      • Enter the node's id (e.g. <error404>1066</error404>)
      • Enter the node's GUID (e.g. <error404>26C1D84F-C900-4D53-B167-E25CC489DAC8</error404>)
      • Enter an XPath to find the node (<error404>//errorPages[@nodeName='My cool error']</error404>)
      • Id's are usually local to the specific solution (so it won't point to the same node in two different environments if you're using Umbraco Cloud).
      • GUIDs are universal and will point to the same node on different environments, provided the content was created in one environment and deployed to the other(s).
      • When using XPath, there is no "context" (i.e. you can't find the node based on "currentPage") so needs to be a global absolute path.

      Remember to recycle the app pool to make sure changes to this section take effect.

    2. Set trySkipIisCustomErrors to true in umbracoSettings.config file:

      <settings>
           <web.routing trySkipIisCustomErrors="true" internalRedirectPreservesTemplate="false" disableAlternativeTemplates="false" validateAlternativeTemplates="false" disableFindContentByIdPath="false" umbracoApplicationUrl="">
           </web.routing>
      </settings>
      

    Set the appropriate response and status code

    1. In the 404.aspx page, set the appropriate http status code:

      <% Response.StatusCode = 404;%>
      
    2. Update your web.config file:

      <configuration>
      <system.web>
          <customErrors mode="On" redirectMode="ResponseRewrite" defaultRedirect="~/ErrorPages/404.aspx">
              <error statusCode="404" redirect="~/ErrorPages/404.aspx"/>
          </customErrors>
      </system.web>
      <system.webServer>
          <httpErrors errorMode="Custom" existingResponse="Auto" >
              <remove statusCode="404"/>
                  <error statusCode="404" path="~/ErrorPages/404.html" responseMode="File"/>
          </httpErrors>
      </system.webServer>
      </configuration>
      

    [Optional] Set the Media location

    To display media instead of a blank page, update the location section in the web.config file:

    <configuration>
        <location path="media">
            <system.webServer>
                <httpErrors errorMode="Custom" existingResponse="Replace">
                    <remove statusCode="404"/>
                        <error statusCode="404" path="~/ErrorPages/404.html" responseMode="File"/>
                </httpErrors>
            </system.webServer>
        </location>
    </configuration>
    

    Now when you spin up the site, you will get a customized Umbraco content page for the 404 error.

    Configuration for Multiple Sites with different Cultures

    If you have multiple sites, with different cultures, setup in your tree then you will need to setup the errors section like below:

    <errors>
        <!-- The id of the page that should be shown if the page is not found -->
        <error404>
            <errorPage culture="default">1066</errorPage>
            <errorPage culture="en-US">1063</errorPage>
        </error404>
    </errors>
    

    If you have more than two sites and forget to update the errors section with a 404 page and a culture, then the default page will act as a fallback. It acts the same if you forget to define a hostname on a site.

    Proxying through IIS on Umbraco Cloud

    For environment specific transforms, include a web.{ENVIRONMENT}.config file for each environment requiring a web.config transformation such as web.Development.config, web.Staging.config, or web.Production.config.

    To set the appropriate status code, update your web.Production.config for the Production environment:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
    <configuration>
      <location path="." inheritInChildApplications="false">
        <system.webServer>
          <httpErrors errorMode="Custom" existingResponse="Replace">
            <remove statusCode="404"/>
                <error statusCode="404" path="~/ErrorPages/404.html" responseMode="File"/>
          </httpErrors>
        </system.webServer>
      </location>
    </configuration>
    

    Validation Errors

    The error pages won’t capture every exception you’re likely to encounter in your application.

    For example, if the user entered or pasted the wrong URL in the address window, an invalid request message, or a malformed syntax request etc. These requests will actually produce a 400 (Bad Request) response so you can either add a specific error page to handle this request or set up a defaultRedirect as such:

    <customErrors mode="Off" redirectMode="ResponseRewrite" defaultRedirect="~/404.aspx">
        <error statusCode="404" redirect="~/404.aspx"/>
    </customErrors>
    

    Errors and IIS7+

    You may find that your custom error page doesn't show, and instead IIS handles the error. To resolve this add the following key to your web.config right before the closing tag of the system.webServer section.

    <httpErrors existingResponse="PassThrough" />
    

    Now IIS will ignore httpErrors and allow Umbraco to handle them.

    Handling multiple sites with the same culture

    If you have multiple sites with the same culture then you can't use the above error settings. Then you will need to have a look at the uComponents Multi-Site Not Found handler. The benefit of using this handler is that you can choose the error page to be shown within the Umbraco Backoffice.

    Notifications

    Umbraco can send out email notifications, set the sender email address for the notifications emails here. To set the SMTP server used to send the emails, edit the standard <mailSettings/> section in the web.config file.

    <notifications>
        <!-- the email that should be used as from mail when Umbraco sends a notification -->
        <email>[email protected]</email>
        <disableHtmlEmail>false</disableHtmlEmail>
    </notifications>
    

    <PreviewBadge>

    This allows you to customize the preview badge being shown when you're previewing a node.

    <PreviewBadge><![CDATA[<a id="umbracoPreviewBadge" style="position: absolute; top: 0; right: 0; border: 0; width: 149px; height: 149px; background: url('{1}/preview/previewModeBadge.png') no-repeat;" href="{0}/endPreview.aspx?redir={2}"><span style="display:none;">In Preview Mode - click to end</span></a>]]></PreviewBadge>
    

    <ResolveUrlsFromTextString>

    This setting is used when you're running Umbraco in virtual directories.

    <!-- Url Resolving ensures that all links works if you run Umbraco in virtual directories -->
    <!-- Setting this to true can increase render time for pages with a large number of links -->
    <!-- If running Umbraco in virtual directory this *must* be set to true! -->
    <ResolveUrlsFromTextString>false</ResolveUrlsFromTextString>
    

    <DisallowedUploadFiles>

    This setting consists of a list of file extensions that editors shouldn't be allowed to upload via the Backoffice.

    <!-- These file types will not be allowed to be uploaded via the upload control for media and content -->
    <disallowedUploadFiles>ashx,aspx,ascx,config,cshtml,vbhtml,asmx,air,axd,swf,xml,xhtml,html,htm,svg,php,htaccess</disallowedUploadFiles>
    

    <AllowedUploadFiles>

    If greater control is required than available from the above, this setting can be used to store a list of file extensions. If provided, only files with these extensions can be uploaded via the Backoffice.

    <!-- If completed, only the file extensions listed below will be allowed to be uploaded.  If empty, disallowedUploadFiles will apply to prevent upload of specific file extensions. -->
    <allowedUploadFiles></allowedUploadFiles>
    

    <AllowedMediaHosts>

    This setting is available from Umbraco 8.18.6.

    By default, only relative URLs are allowed when getting URLs for resized images or thumbnails using the ImagesController. If you need absolute URLs you will have to add the allowed hosts to this list. The value could be ["umbraco.com", "www.umbraco.com"].

    <!-- By default, only relative URLs are allowed when getting URLs for resized images or thumbnails using the ImagesController. Add allowed hosts for absolute paths -->
    <allowedMediaHosts></allowedMediaHosts>
    

    <loginBackgroundImage>

    You can specify your own background image for the login screen here. The image will automatically get an overlay to match Backoffice colors. This path is relative to the ~/umbraco path. The default location is: /umbraco/assets/img/installer.jpg.

    <loginBackgroundImage>../App_Plugins/Backgrounds/login.png</loginBackgroundImage>
    

    This setting is used for controlling whether or not to show the Umbraco login inside Backoffice. The default value is: false.

    <hideBackofficeLogo>false</hideBackofficeLogo>
    

    Security

    In the security section you have the following options: <keepUserLoggedIn>, <usernameIsEmail>, <hideDisabledUsersInBackoffice>, <allowPasswordReset>, <authCookieName> and <authCookieDomain>. These settings deal with Backoffice users and settings for the Backoffice authentication cookies.

    <security>
        <!-- set to true to auto update login interval
        (and there by disabling the lock screen) -->
        <keepUserLoggedIn>true</keepUserLoggedIn>
    
        <!-- by default this is true and if not specified in config will be true.
        Set to false to always show a separate username field in the Backoffice user editor -->
        <usernameIsEmail>true</usernameIsEmail>
        
        <!-- If you prefer not to display them set this to true -->
        <hideDisabledUsersInBackoffice>false</hideDisabledUsersInBackoffice>
    
        <!-- set to true to enable the UI and API to allow Backoffice users to reset their passwords -->
        <allowPasswordReset>true</allowPasswordReset>
    
        <!-- set to a different value if you require the authentication cookie for Backoffice users to be renamed -->
        <authCookieName>UMB_UCONTEXT</authCookieName>
    
        <!-- set to a different value if you require the authentication cookie
        for Backoffice users to be set against a different domain -->
        <authCookieDomain></authCookieDomain>
    
    </security>
    

    <keepUserLoggedIn> Keep this setting to "true" to avoid the lock screen introduced in earlier version of Umbraco. If you like the lock screen feel free to set this option to "false" and thereby enabling it.

    <usernameIsEmail> This setting specifies whether the username and email address are separate fields in the backoffice editor. When set to "false", you can specify an email address and username, only the username can be used to log on. When set the "true" (the default value) the username is hidden and always the same as the email address.

    <hideDisabledUsersInBackoffice> If this is set to "true" it's not possible to see disabled users, which means it's not possible to re-enable their access to the Backoffice again. It also means you can't create an identical username if the user was disabled by a mistake.

    <allowPasswordReset> The feature to allow users to reset their passwords if they have forgotten them. The feature is based on a method provided by ASP.NET Identity. By default, this is enabled but if you'd prefer to not allow users to do this it can be disabled at both the UI and API level by setting this value to "false".

    <authCookieName> The authentication cookie which is set in the browser when a Backoffice user logs in, and defaults to UMB_UCONTEXT. This setting is excluded from the configuration file but can be added in if a different cookie name needs to be set.

    <authCookieDomain> The authentication cookie which is set in the browser when a Backoffice user logs in is automatically set to the current domain. This setting is excluded from the configuration file but can be added in if a different domain is required.

    Scripting

    The <scripting> section is about legacy scripting and is by default not present in new versions.

    viewstateMoverModule

    The viewstate mover module is included by default. It enables you to move all ASP.NET viewstate information to the end of the page, thereby making it easier for search engines to index your content instead of going through viewstate JavaScript code. Please note that this does not work will all ASP.NET controls.

    <!-- This moves the ASP.NET viewstate data to the end of the html document instead of having it in the beginning-->
    <viewstateMoverModule enable="false" />
    

    RequestHandler

    The options in the request handler let us do some quite useful things, like setting domain prefixes, deciding whether or not to use trailing slashes and setting URL replacement for special characters. Let's have a further look at each option below.

    <requestHandler>
        <!-- this will add a trailing slash (/) to urls when in directory url mode -->
        <addTrailingSlash>true</addTrailingSlash>
        <urlReplacing toAscii="false">
            <char org=" ">-</char>
            <char org="&quot;"></char>
            <char org="'"></char>
            <char org="%"></char>
            <char org="."></char>
            <char org=";"></char>
            <char org="/"></char>
            <char org="\"></char>
            <char org=":"></char>
            <char org="#"></char>
            <char org="+">plus</char>
            <char org="*">star</char>
            <char org="&amp;"></char>
            <char org="?"></char>
            <char org="æ">ae</char>
            <char org="ø">oe</char>
            <char org="å">aa</char>
            <char org="ä">ae</char>
            <char org="ö">oe</char>
            <char org="ü">ue</char>
            <char org="ß">ss</char>
            <char org="Ä">ae</char>
            <char org="Ö">oe</char>
            <char org="|">-</char>
            <char org="&lt;"></char>
            <char org="&gt;"></char>
        </urlReplacing>
    </requestHandler>
    

    <addTrailingSlash>

    As mentioned in the comment above, this will add a trailing slash to the url when <addTrailingSlash> is set to "true". If you don't want to have a trailing slash, set the value to false.

    <urlReplacing>

    The toAscii attributes tells Umbraco to convert all urls to ASCII using the built-in transliteration library. It is disabled by default, ie by default urls remain UTF8. Set it to true if you want to have ASCII urls.

    Introduced in Umbraco 7.6.4 the toAscii attribute can be set to try. This will make the engine try to convert the name to an ASCII implementation. If it fails, it will fallback to the name. Reason is that some languages don't have ASCII implementations, therefore the urls would end up being empty.

    Within the <urlReplacing> section there are a lot of <char> elements with an org attribute. The attribute holds the character that should be replaced and within the <char> tags the value it should be replaced with is entered.

    So, if <char org="ñ">n</char> is added above the ñ will be shown as a n in the url.

    Logging

    Most of the logging configuration is moved to the Serilog config files.

    <logging>
        <maxLogAge>-1</maxLogAge>
    </logging>
    

    <maxLogAge>

    The maximum log age in minutes used for the internal audit log scrubbing.

    Web.Routing

    <trySkipIisCustomErrors>

    defines the value of Response.TrySkipIisCustomErrors when an error (404, 400, 500...) is encountered. You probably want it to be true in order to prevent IIS from displaying its own 404 or 500 pages, and instead have your own page displayed.

    <internalRedirectPreservesTemplate>

    when true, an internal redirect does not reset the alternative template, if any.

    <disableAlternativeTemplates>

    when true, the entire alternative templates feature of Umbraco is disabled.

    validateAlternativeTemplates Will not load the template from the database. If false the template might not exists in the database. Otherwise the template need to exist in the database.

    <disableFindContentByIdPath>

    when true, urls such as /1234 do not find content with ID 1234.

    <disableRedirectUrlTracking>

    When you move and rename pages in Umbraco, 301 permanent redirects are automatically created, set this to true if you do not want this behavior.

    <urlProviderMode>

    Possible values are:

    • Default: Indicates that the URL provider should do what it has been configured to do.
    • Relative: Indicates that the URL provider should produce relative URLs exclusively.
    • Absolute: Indicates that the URL provider should produce absolute URLs exclusively.
    • Auto: Indicates that the URL provider should determine automatically whether to return relative or absolute URLs.

    umbracoApplicationUrl

    Defines the Umbraco application url, i.e. how the server should reach itself. By default, Umbraco will guess that url from the first request made to the server. Use that setting if the guess is not correct (because you are behind a load-balancer, for example). Format is: "http://www.mysite.com/umbraco" i.e. it needs to contain the scheme (http/https), complete hostname, and Umbraco path.

    <web.routing
        trySkipIisCustomErrors="false"
        internalRedirectPreservesTemplate="false"
        disableAlternativeTemplates="false"
        validateAlternativeTemplates="false"
        disableFindContentByIdPath="false"
        disableRedirectUrlTracking="false"
        urlProviderMode="Auto"
        umbracoApplicationUrl=""
    />
    

    KeepAlive (Available on Umbraco version 8.6.0 and above)

    <keepAlive disableKeepAliveTask="false" keepAlivePingUrl="{umbracoApplicationUrl}/api/keepalive/ping" />
    

    With the keepAlive element, you can configure two attributes:

    • disableKeepAliveTask: Disables the periodic KeepAliveTask when set to "true". Use this setting to disable the KeepAliveTask in case you already have an alternative. For example, Azure App Service has keep alive functionality built-in.
    • keepAlivePingUrl: The url of the KeepAlivePing action. By default, the url will use the umbracoApplicationUrl setting as the basis. Change this setting to specify an alternative url to reach the KeepAlivePing action. eg http://localhost/umbraco/api/keepalive/ping defaults to "{umbracoApplicationUrl}/api/keepalive/ping".

    There is an [OnlyLocalRequests] attribute which verifies if the request to the KeepAliveController.Ping action came from the local machine.

    If the request is made from an external source, Umbraco will return an HTTP 404 response.