VitalRecorder Configuration File (vr.conf) Guide

VitalRecorder manages device, bed, and filter settings through a single configuration file called vr.conf. This document describes the file structure and how to write it.

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Table of Contents

1. File Location
2. File Structure
3. Global Settings
4. Bed Section
5. Device Section
6. Filter Section
7. Command Line Options
8. Configuration Examples

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1. File Location

• Encoding: UTF-8
• Use --conf <path> on the command line to specify an alternate configuration file.
• Use --conf - to read the configuration from standard input (no file needed). In this mode, settings are treated as read-only — VitalRecorder will not write back to any .conf file, so the original on-disk configuration is preserved. Useful for ad-hoc tests and containerized runs.

# Run with a piped-in config (Git Bash / Linux shell)
./Vital.exe --console --conf - <<'EOF'
SAVEDIR=/tmp/vr_out
[BED/TEST]
[DEV/BIS]
type=BIS
port=127.0.0.1:4343
EOF

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2. File Structure

The file follows an INI-like format consisting of global settings and sections.

# Global settings (top of file)
KEY=VALUE

# Bed (tab) definition
[BED/bedname]

# Device under this bed
[DEV/devicename]
type=DeviceType
port=PortSpec

# Filter under this bed
[FILT/filter_module_name]

Rules:

• One KEY=VALUE pair per line
• Section headers start with [
• Blank lines are ignored
• [DEV/...] and [FILT/...] sections belong to the preceding [BED/...]
• A single [BED/...] can contain multiple devices and filters

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3. Global Settings

Settings placed before any [BED/...] section.

General

Recording

Server

TLS / Certificate Trust

VitalRecorder can verify the server TLS certificate for all HTTPS uploads and WebSocket monitoring connections, or it can accept any certificate (legacy behavior).

Note for the 1.x line: the default is TLS_INSECURE=1 (verification off). Many hospital deployments use private/self-signed CAs that are not installed system-wide, so forcing verification would break existing uploads. Sites that do have a trusted CA chain can opt in by setting TLS_INSECURE=0. Vital Recorder 2.0 is planned to flip this default.

Typical scenarios

• Existing hospital deployment (private CA, unchanged) — keep the default. No change in 1.x needed.
• Public internet, valid public CA (vitaldb.net) — set TLS_INSECURE=0. The system CA store already trusts the server; no other setup required.
• Hospital SSL-inspection proxy (Zscaler, Palo Alto, Blue Coat, …) on secure mode — set TLS_INSECURE=0 and have the hospital IT team install the proxy's root CA into the Windows certificate store (Group Policy distribution is the normal path). On Linux/macOS/Raspberry Pi builds, point TLS_EXTRA_CA at the PEM file provided by IT.

# Example — enable TLS verification, using a hospital-provided CA bundle on Linux/RPi
TLS_INSECURE=0
TLS_EXTRA_CA=/etc/vitalrecorder/hospital-root-ca.pem

# Example — enable TLS verification using only the Windows system certificate store
TLS_INSECURE=0

Window

Event Presets

Up to 30 event preset labels can be defined with EVT_TEXT_0 through EVT_TEXT_29.

EVT_TEXT_0=Induction
EVT_TEXT_1=Intubation
EVT_TEXT_2=Incision

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4. Bed Section

Defines a bed (tab). Multiple beds can be defined in a single configuration file.

[BED/OR1]

• The bed name follows BED/ (e.g., OR1, ICU_BED3)
• If omitted, the bed name is auto-generated from VRCODE or the PC hostname

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5. Device Section

Devices are added under a [BED/...] section.

Basic Settings

[DEV/devicename]
type=DeviceType
port=PortSpec

Port Formats

Port Filtering

Keyword and IP filters can be appended to the port value.

port=PORT#keyword1 keyword2#keyword3@IP_SUFFIX

Examples:

• COM1#BIS -- accept only frames containing "BIS" on COM1
• 4343#HR SpO2#BP -- "HR AND SpO2" or "BP"
• [email protected] -- accept only connections from IPs ending in 10.1

ADC Device Settings

For ADC (Analog-to-Digital Converter) devices, per-channel settings are available.

[DEV/SNUADC]
type=SNUADC
port=COM3
srate=500
parname1=ECG
gain1=1.0
parname2=ART
gain2=100.0

S5 / Datex Device Settings (GE Solar / Bx50 / B1x5M / Canvas)

Devices that use the Datex DRI protocol (S5, Solar8000, Bx50, B1x5M, Canvas) support per-device options to choose which waveforms are requested from the monitor.

Available waveform names: ECG1, ECG2, PLETH (alias PPG), CO2, O2, N2O, AWP, IABP1–IABP8, EEG1, EEG2, EEGBIS, EEGENT, EEGENT400.

Invasive arterial pressure (ART) waveform: Use IABP1 — ART and INVP1 are not recognized. The first invasive pressure channel (commonly labeled ART on the monitor screen) is mapped to IABP1.

Default waveforms when wavs is not set:

If you need additional waveforms on a B1x5M (e.g., invasive arterial pressure), list them explicitly:

[DEV/B1x5M]
type=B1x5M
port=LU
wavs=ECG1,PLETH,IABP1,CO2,AWP

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6. Filter Section

Adds a real-time signal processing filter. Filter definitions are loaded from the filter server.

[FILT/filter_module_name]

• The module name must match the modname of a filter registered on the server.
• No additional settings are needed (filter parameters are provided by the server).

Filter runtime (1.18.37+) — VitalRecorder downloads a slim Python 3.11 runtime (~27 MB) on first filter use, replacing the previous 121 MB pyvital-based bundle. The local server is provided by openvital (numpy + stdlib http.server, no async/web framework deps). Basic ECG / PPG / EEG filters work out of the box; ML-heavy filters (HPI, beat noise detector, rhythm classifier, dlapco SV) are gated behind the Install ML filters button in the Add Filter dialog, which runs pip install openvital[all] silently (no command window) and pulls PyTorch / TensorFlow only on demand.

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7. Command Line Options

vr --conf <path>         Specify configuration file path
vr --console             Run in console mode (no GUI)
vr --debug               Console + debug mode
vr --debug test.conf     Debug mode with specified config file
vr --version             Show version info
vr --devtypes            List supported device types
vr --help                Show help

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8. Configuration Examples

Basic: Single Patient Monitor

SAVEDIR=D:\VitalData

[BED/OR1]

[DEV/Solar8000]
type=Solar8000
port=COM1

Multiple Devices

SAVEDIR=D:\VitalData
VRCODE=OR1_PC

[BED/OR1]

[DEV/Intellivue]
type=Intellivue
port=192.168.1.100:4343

[DEV/BIS]
type=BIS
port=COM3

[DEV/Primus]
type=Primus
port=COM4

Multiple Beds

SAVEDIR=D:\VitalData

[BED/OR1]

[DEV/Solar8000]
type=Solar8000
port=COM1

[BED/OR2]

[DEV/Philips]
type=Intellivue
port=192.168.1.101:4343

Debug / Test

SAVEDIR=C:\Users\lucid\Desktop
DEBUG=1

[BED/test]

[DEV/NK EGA]
type=EGA
company=Nihon Kohden
port=9001

With Filter

[BED/OR1]

[DEV/Solar8000]
type=Solar8000
port=COM1

[FILT/pleth_spi]