searxng/docs/admin/settings/settings_server.rst
Markus Heiser f4250b6d40 [doc] adds the missing documentation of the server.method settings.
TL;DR; For all the issues that comes with HTTP POST I recommend instance
maintainers to switch to GET and lock the property in the preferences:

```yaml
server:
  method: GET

preferences:
  lock:
    - method
```

We don't want this in the defaults of the SearXNG distributions for the pros vs
cons listed in this discussion:

- https://github.com/searxng/searxng/pull/3619
2025-01-30 14:24:38 +01:00

2.5 KiB

server:

server:
    base_url: http://example.org/location  # change this!
    port: 8888
    bind_address: "127.0.0.1"
    secret_key: "ultrasecretkey"           # change this!
    limiter: false
    public_instance: false
    image_proxy: false
    method: "POST"
    default_http_headers:
      X-Content-Type-Options : nosniff
      X-Download-Options : noopen
      X-Robots-Tag : noindex, nofollow
      Referrer-Policy : no-referrer
base_url : $SEARXNG_URL

The base URL where SearXNG is deployed. Used to create correct inbound links.

port & bind_address: $SEARXNG_PORT & $SEARXNG_BIND_ADDRESS

Port number and bind address of the SearXNG web application if you run it directly using python searx/webapp.py. Doesn't apply to a SearXNG services running behind a proxy and using socket communications.

secret_key : $SEARXNG_SECRET

Used for cryptography purpose.

limiter : $SEARXNG_LIMITER

Rate limit the number of request on the instance, block some bots. The limiter requires a settings redis database.

public_instance : $SEARXNG_PUBLIC_INSTANCE

Setting that allows to enable features specifically for public instances (not needed for local usage). By set to true the following features are activated:

  • :pysearx.botdetection.link_token in the limiter
image_proxy : $SEARXNG_IMAGE_PROXY

Allow your instance of SearXNG of being able to proxy images. Uses memory space.

method : GET | POST

HTTP method. By defaults POST is used / The POST method has the advantage with some WEB browsers that the history is not easy to read, but there are also various disadvantages that sometimes severely restrict the ease of use for the end user (e.g. back button to jump back to the previous search page and drag & drop of search term to new tabs do not work as expected .. and several more). We had a lot of long discussions about the pros v2 cons:

default_http_headers :

Set additional HTTP headers, see #755