How do I connect to a self-hosted W&B Server? - Weights & Biases Documentation

W&B Server is a self-hosted deployment of W&B that runs within your own infrastructure. Connecting the W&B SDK and CLI to a self-hosted instance requires pointing them at your server’s URL instead of api.wandb.ai. Authenticating via the CLI

wandb login --host https://your-wandb-server.company.com

This stores the host and your API key in ~/.netrc. You will be prompted to enter your API key, which you can retrieve from your user profile on the self-hosted instance. Setting the host via environment variable For containerized jobs or CI/CD pipelines where you cannot run interactive login:

export WANDB_BASE_URL=https://your-wandb-server.company.com
export WANDB_API_KEY=your_api_key
python train.py

WANDB_BASE_URL takes precedence over any value stored in ~/.netrc. Setting the host in Python

import wandb

wandb.login(
    host="https://your-wandb-server.company.com",
    key="your_api_key",
)

wandb.init(project="my-project")

Verifying the connection

wandb status

This prints the current host, logged-in user, and API key (masked). Confirm the host matches your server URL. SSL / certificate issues If your server uses a self-signed or internal CA certificate, Python’s requests library may reject the connection. Set the path to your CA bundle:

export REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE=/path/to/ca-bundle.crt

Or in Python before initializing W&B:

import os
os.environ["REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE"] = "/path/to/ca-bundle.crt"

Switching between cloud and self-hosted To switch back to W&B cloud (api.wandb.ai) from a self-hosted instance, either unset WANDB_BASE_URL or re-run wandb login without the --host flag:

unset WANDB_BASE_URL
wandb login

Common issues

401 on wandb.init(): Your API key does not exist on the self-hosted instance. API keys are not shared between W&B cloud and self-hosted deployments — generate a new key from your profile on the self-hosted instance.
Connection refused / timeout: The server URL may be wrong, or your machine may need VPN access to reach the internal network.
License not recognized: See Why is my enterprise license not recognized? for license validation steps.

Administrator User Management Environment Variables

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