Problem with the CONFIG_PATH variable

[inexxt]

The config path variable is now named CONFIG_PATH - as it is quite a common name, it is possible that many other tasks may require the same name - in my case, it was set up by some other process.
It led to some quite cryptic error stack and took me a while to solve.

FATAL CLI ERROR Error: EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, read
    at Error (native)
    at Object.fs.readSync (fs.js:731:19)
    at tryReadSync (fs.js:486:20)
    at fs.readFileSync (fs.js:534:19)
    at /home/user/Programs/kibana-5.1.1-linux-x86_64/src/cli/serve/read_yaml_config.js:52:55
    at Array.map (native)
    at exports.default (/home/user/Programs/kibana-5.1.1-linux-x86_64/src/cli/serve/read_yaml_config.js:51:21)
    at readServerSettings (/home/user/Programs/kibana-5.1.1-linux-x86_64/src/cli/serve/serve.js:48:52)
    at getCurrentSettings (/home/user/Programs/kibana-5.1.1-linux-x86_64/src/cli/serve/serve.js:104:14)
    at Command.<anonymous> (/home/user/Programs/kibana-5.1.1-linux-x86_64/src/cli/serve/serve.js:106:20)

Maybe changing the name of the variable to something like KIBANA_CONFIG_PATH or changing the way the exception stack is printed when there is a problem with that would be a good solution?

[jbudz]

Path's are defined at https://github.com/elastic/kibana/blob/master/src/server/path/index.js, agreed

[tsullivan]

You can give different environment variables to different processes: the variables don't need to be global in the OS / shell.

Also, you can run different processes in different containers nowadays, and whitelist variables to expose to running containers.

I'm inclined to see this closed as a wont-fix

[jbudz]

It'll be changed to KIBANA_PATH_CONF to align with elasticsearch in #32049

[tsullivan]

closing per #32049