Spring boot application properties file

Spring Boot comes with a built-in mechanism for application configuration using a file called application.properties. It is located under the src/main/resources folder, as shown below.

This file is like a properties file which stores key-value pair. Below is an example

Spring Boot provides various pre-defined properties that can be configured in application.properties file. The properties have default values unless configures specific properties.

Note -> Spring Boot also allows us to define our own property if required.

Application.properties file allows as to configure various properties. Some of the purposes are:

Configure the Spring Boot framework
Define custom configuration properties
Define environment specific properties

YAML file

There is another alternative to application.properties file and that is application.yaml file. The sytax used in YAML file is different. Either of the two files is used. Examples of a YAML file is given below

spring:  
    application:  
        name: spring boot sample application  
server:  
    port: 8081
spring:
    thymeleaf:
        enabled: true

Spring boot properties examples

Spring Boot pre-defined properties are divided into various categories. Some of the most common properties are listed in the below table.

Property	Default Value	Description
spring.application.name		Used to set the application name.
spring.config.name	application	It is used to set config file name.
spring.application.admin.enabled	false	It is used to enable admin features of the application.
server.port	8080	Used to set the port on which server will run
spring.config.location		It is used to config the file name.
server.servlet.context-path		It configures the context path of the application.
logging.file.path		It configures the location of the log file.
logging.file		Used to set log file name.
spring.banner.charset	UTF-8	Banner file encoding.
spring.banner.location	classpath:banner.txt	It is used to set banner file location.
spring.application.index		It is used to set application index.
spring.application.name		It is used to set the application name.
spring.application.admin.enabled	false	It is used to enable admin features for the application.
spring.mail.default-encoding	UTF-8	It is used to set default MimeMessage encoding.
spring.mail.host		It is used to set SMTP server host. For example, smtp.example.com.
spring.mail.password		It is used to set login password of the SMTP server.
spring.mail.port		It is used to set SMTP server port.
spring.mail.test-connection	false	It is used to test that the mail server is available on startup.
spring.mail.username		It is used to set login user of the SMTP server.
spring.main.sources		It is used to set sources for the application.
server.address		It is used to set network address to which the server should bind to.
server.connection-timeout		It is used to set time in milliseconds that connectors will wait for another HTTP request before closing the connection.
server.context-path		It is used to set context path of the application.
server.server-header		It is used for the Server response header (no header is sent if empty)
server.servlet-path	/	It is used to set path of the main dispatcher servlet
server.ssl.enabled		It is used to enable SSL support.
spring.http.multipart.enabled	True	It is used to enable support of multi-part uploads.
spring.servlet.multipart.max-file-size	1MB	It is used to set max file size.
spring.mvc.async.request-timeout		It is used to set time in milliseconds.
spring.mvc.date-format		It is used to set date format. For example, dd/MM/yyyy.
spring.mvc.locale		It is used to set locale for the application.
security.basic.authorize-mode	role	It is used to set security authorize mode to apply.
security.basic.enabled	true	It is used to enable basic authentication.
Spring.test.database.replace	any	Type of existing DataSource to replace.
Spring.test.mockmvc.print	default	MVC Print option
spring.freemaker.content-type	text/html	Content Type value
server.server-header		Value to use for the server response header.
spring.security.filter.dispatcher-type	async, error, request	Security filter chain dispatcher types.
spring.security.filter.order	-100	Security filter chain order.
spring.security.oauth2.client.registration.*		OAuth client registrations.
spring.security.oauth2.client.provider.*		OAuth provider details.