Data Initialization

If you are deploying Casdoor with other services as a complete application, you may want to provide an out-of-the-box feature for users. This means that users can directly use the application without any configuration.

In such a situation, you can use data initialization to register your service in Casdoor through a configuration file. This file can be pre-defined or dynamically generated by your own service.

Here we give a tutorial for importing or exporting config data.

Import Config Data

By default, if there is a configuration file named init_data.json at the root directory of Casdoor, it will be used to initialize data in Casdoor. You can also specify a custom path for the initialization file by setting the initDataFile parameter in conf/app.conf:

initDataFile = /path/to/your/init_data.json

If no custom path is specified, Casdoor will look for init_data.json in the root directory where Casdoor runs.

If you are using the official Docker image of Casdoor, here are some scripts that can help you to mount init_data.json into the container.

A template for init_data.json is provided at: init_data.json.template. Rename it to init_data.json before using it.

For Docker

If you deploy Casdoor with Docker, you can use the volume command to mount init_data.json into the container.

docker run ... -v /path/to/init_data.json:/init_data.json

For Kubernetes

If you deploy Casdoor with Kubernetes, you can use the configmap to store init_data.json.

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: casdoor-init-data
data:
  init_data.json:

You can mount the data into Casdoor pods by mounting the configmap. You can modify your deployment as follows:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
...
spec:
  template:
    ...
    spec:
      containers:
      ...
        volumeMounts:
        - mountPath: /init_data.json
          name: casdoor-init-data-volume
          subPath: init_data.json
      volumes:
      - configMap:
          name: casdoor-init-data
        name: casdoor-init-data-volume

Export Config Data

You can export all Casdoor configuration data to a file for backup or migration purposes. There are two methods available:

Using the Binary (Recommended)

If you're running Casdoor from a binary, use the -export flag to dump the database to a JSON file:

# Export to default location (init_data_dump.json)
./casdoor -export

# Export to a custom path
./casdoor -export -exportPath /path/to/backup.json

The export runs after database initialization but before the server starts, then exits automatically. This method works with any deployment method (binary, Docker, Kubernetes) and doesn't require Go toolchain or source code access.

Using Go Test

If you have access to the source code, you can use the test method:

go test ./object -v -run TestDumpToFile

This will generate init_data_dump.json in the same directory.

Migrating Data

After exporting, rename init_data_dump.json to init_data.json and place it in the root directory of your target Casdoor installation. On startup, Casdoor will automatically import the data.

References

All Casdoor objects supported by the data initialization are as follows:

Object	Go Struct	Documentation
organizations	struct	doc
applications	struct	doc
users	struct	doc
certs	struct	doc
providers	struct	doc
ldaps	struct	doc
models	struct
permissions	struct	doc
payments	struct	doc
products	struct	doc
resources	struct	doc
roles	struct	doc
syncers	struct	doc
tokens	struct	doc
webhooks	struct	doc
groups	struct	doc
adapters	struct	doc
enforcers	struct
plans	struct	doc
pricings	struct	doc
invitations	struct	doc
records	struct
sessions	struct
subscriptions	struct	doc
transactions	struct

If you still feel confused about filling out this template, you can call the RESTful API or use the debug mode of your browser to see the response of GetXXX to these objects. The responses are in the same format as init_data.json.