dconf is a low-level configuration system and settings management tool. Its main purpose is to provide a back end to GSettings on platforms that don't already have configuration storage systems. It depends on GLib. It is part of GNOME as of version 3, and is a replacement for GConf.

dconf is a simple key-based configuration system. Keys exist in an unstructured database (but it is intended that keys that logically belong together are grouped together).

Change notification is supported.

Stacking of multiple configuration sources is supported. Mandatory keys are supported.

The stacking can be done at "mount points". For example, the global system configuration can be mounted under /system/ inside of each user's configuration space. A single configuration source may appear at multiple points in the hierarchy. For example, in addition to stacking over the normal keys at /user/, the system default keys may also appear at /default/ for inspection and modification by a system policy configuration utility.

PolicyKit integration is planned so that a normal user may temporarily gain the ability to, for example, write to the keys under /system/ (or /default/). This means that programs like the GNOME Display Manager configuration utility will no longer have to be run as root.

dconf is loosely the GNOME equivalent of the Windows Registry.

Since a typical GNOME login consists of thousands of reads and ideally 0 writes, dconf is optimized for reads. Typically, reading a key from dconf involves zero system calls and zero context switches. This is achieved with a simple file format that doubles both as the storage format for data in dconf and as an IPC mechanism between the clients and the server.