---
title: 'Dashboard'
description: 'Accessing the Dashboard!'
---
## Setup Your First Super Admin
Once you have started NocoDB, you can visit the dashboard via `example.com`. You will be redirected to `example.com/#/signup`.
Enter your work email and your password.
:::info
Your password has at least 8 letters. No other constraints on case, numbers or special characters.
:::
On signup, landing page has a default project & a table created for you to quickly get started
The data will be stored in `NC_DB`. If it is not specified, a local SQLite will be created and used.
:::info
NC_DB is an environment variable used to store the metadata.
:::
### Connecting to External Database
Click on project title in left sidebar to open the project dashboard. On the project dashboard, open `Data Sources` tab. Click on `+ New Source` button to add existing database.
:::tip
If you are running NocoDB on Docker and your local DB is running on your host machine, your Host Address would be host.docker.internal instead of localhost.
:::
You need to specify the project name, API type, and other database parameters.
Currently it supports MySQL, Postgres, MSSQL and SQLite.
You can also configure associated SSL & advanced parameters.
:::tip
You can click Edit Connection JSON and modify SSL settings in "ssl".
:::
```json
{
"client": "pg",
"connection": {
"host": "",
"port": "5432",
"user": "",
"password": "",
"database": "",
"ssl": {
"require": true,
"rejectUnauthorized": false,
"sslMode": "no-verify"
}
}
}
```
:::tip
You can click Edit Connection JSON and specify the schema you want to use in "searchPath".
:::
```json
{
"client": "pg",
"connection": {
...
},
"searchPath": [ "" ]
}
```
Click `Test Database Connection` to see if the connection can be established or not. NocoDB creates a new **empty database** with specified parameters if the database doesn't exist.
