IBGA Configuration Arguments

This section discusses IBGA-specific IB_* arguments (in fact, environment variables). For the basics of a Docker Compose configuration, including mechanisms such as volumes, ports, restart, refer to Docker Basics.

IBGA uses environment variables to pass configuration arguments to the scripts in the container.

IB_USERNAME*	The username of your IB account
IB_PASSWORD*	The password of your IB account
IB_REGION	The “Region” combo box in the login window after clicking “More Options”. Available choices: America, Europe, Asia, China.
IB_TIMEZONE*	The “Time Zone” combo box in the login window after clicking “More Options”. IBG will shut down or restart daily. “Time Zone” is an important setting that governs not only how to interpret the “Log Off/Restart” time, but also the current time reported by the API. For a list of possible values, please refer to the “TZ database name” column in the time zone database.
IB_LOGINTAB*	The “Login Tab”, otherwise shown as “API Type”. Available choices are either IB API or FIX CTCI.
IB_LOGINTYPE*	The “Login Type”, otherwise shown as “Trading Mode”. Available choices are either Paper Trading or Live Trading.
IB_LOGOFF*	The “Auto Logoff Timer” in Configuration/Lock and Exit in the Configure/Settings dialog. IB Gateway will shut down daily, at the clock time in the format of HH:MM A/PM specified by this argument. IBGA will open up the corresponding dialog after login to match the settings. It will also stick to “Auto logoff” instead of “Auto restart” because IBGA has automatic restarts built-in, and “Auto logoff” is easier to control.
IB_APILOG	Whether to check “Create API message log file” in Configuration/API/Settings in the Configure/Settings dialog. Omitting this variable will leave the checkbox unchecked. Setting it to any value (true for example) will leave it checked. If set to data, it will also check “Included market data in API log file”.
IB_LOGLEVEL	The “Logging Level” in Configuration/API/Settings in the Configure/Settings dialog. Available choices are System, Error, Warning, Info, and Detail. IB technical support typically needs you to provide a Detail log if you were to ask for assistance with your API programming.
IBGA_VNC_PASSWORD	Set a password for VNC. The length of the password is between 1-8 characters. If more than 8 are provided, it will get truncated. Setting a VNC password is not an adequate measure to prevent unwanted access. For more information, please refer to Security.
IBGA_EXPORT_LOGS	When set to true, IBGA will export today’s and yesterday’s Gateway and API logs to the location specified by IBGA_LOG_EXPORT_DIR.
IBGA_LOG_EXPORT_DIR	Specify the container-aspect directory to export logs into. When this variable is not set, IBGA will use a subdirectory of the settings dir /home/ibg_settings/exported_logs.
IB_PREFER_IBKEY	Set to “true” to allow automatic selection of “IB Key” when there are multiple choices of two-factor authentication devices.

Arguments marked with an asterisk symbol (*) are required.

Note that you must write the exact value for text arguments. For instance, IB_LOGINTAB=IB API will work. But IB_LOGINTAB=IBAPI or IB_LOGINTAB=ib api will not. Moreover, IB Gateway starts in the English language setting by default, which you should retain. Internal IBGA scripts read UI component and distinguish one button from another based on the text. The scripts only recognize English.

Some environment variables (namely IBG_DIR, IBG_SETTINGS_DIR, IBG_PORT_INTERNAL, IBG_PORT, and IBG_DOWNLOAD_URL, not listed in the table above) determine how IBGA works internally. They support overriding via Docker Compose configurations. That is, they come with a default value suitable for common usage. But you get to customize how the container works if you need to control how a particular aspect works. Please refer to the source code of _env.sh for details.