Config: the default configuration file is ignored, and so is `--conf`

[ildella]

Have you read the documentation?
Yes.

How did you configure electrs?

Is running on a raspberrypi with latest Raspian OS. I built it from scratch.

$ cat ~/.electrs/config.toml
[server]
electrum_rpc_addr = "127.0.0.1:50001"

[bitcoin]
network = "bitcoin"
daemon_dir = "/home/pi/zio/bitcoin"
cookie_file = "/home/pi/zio/bitcoin/.cookie"
db_dir = "/home/pi/zio/electrs/db"
log_filters = "TRACE"

Environment variables: none set
Arguments: none set

Debug output of configuration

$ ./target/release/electrs
Starting electrs 0.10.5 on aarch64 linux with Config { network: Bitcoin, db_path: "./db/bitcoin", db_log_dir: None, daemon_dir: "/home/pi/.bitcoin", daemon_auth: CookieFile("/home/pi/.bitcoin/.cookie"), daemon_rpc_addr: 127.0.0.1:8332, daemon_p2p_addr: 127.0.0.1:8333, electrum_rpc_addr: 127.0.0.1:50001, monitoring_addr: 127.0.0.1:4224, wait_duration: 10s, jsonrpc_timeout: 15s, index_batch_size: 10, index_lookup_limit: None, reindex_last_blocks: 0, auto_reindex: true, ignore_mempool: false, sync_once: false, skip_block_download_wait: false, disable_electrum_rpc: false, server_banner: "Welcome to electrs 0.10.5 (Electrum Rust Server)!", signet_magic: f9beb4d9, args: [] }
Error: electrs failed

Caused by:
    0: failed to open bitcoind cookie file: /home/pi/.bitcoin/.cookie
    1: No such file or directory (os error 2)

Expected behavior
I would expect the configuration to be loaded, as expected from the docs: https://github.com/romanz/electrs/blob/master/doc/config.md#configuration-files-and-priorities

Actual behavior
It is clear that electrs is starting using default configuration, looking for files in /home/pi/.bitcoin/ while my config states otherwise.

[Kixunil]

Firstly, are you sure you're using a recent version from this repository? Not forks made by other people as those tend to introduce incompatible changes. Also are you sure you're using a recent version? Are you sure you're launching it with correct HOME environment variable? Are you sure you're not using some kind of isolation like a container or funny systemd options?

Sorry if these seem like stupid questions but the code definitely worked last time I tested and also there weren't any changes. And the code looks correct to me so OS issues are more likely.

[ildella]

I am more than positive that something is wrong with what I do and not with the code. Still I did follow instructions to the letter.

1. yes, git repo is this one.
2. I did clone and build few days ago. A git pull just got me a few updates, I'll try again but it's very unlikely that is the problem.
3. what is the correct HOME env var and why there is a correct one? As you see I run electrs without any additional params.
4. I am not using any isolation container or other systemd option. I am starting it from the terminal with the command I pasted up there.

[ildella]

And to be clear, if I put the config in the command line like

/home/pi/apps/electrs/target/release/electrs --log-filters INFO --db-dir /home/pi/zio/electrs/db --electrum-rpc-addr="127.0.0.1:50001" --daemon-dir=/home/pi/zio/bitcoin

They are used and it starts. Is just that it does not load from the toml config.

[Kixunil]

3. what is the correct HOME env var and why there is a correct one? As you see I run electrs without any additional params.

It's normally set by the OS (see echo $HOME) but it gets messed up occasionally. It looks like it should be /home/pi in your case.

[Maj3re]

I had a similar issue on a laptop, this solved it

#199 (comment)

[thnkman]

I had a similar issue. Seems the binary can't start if you call --conf from a none "standard" (hard coded) directory. In my init script, i had to cd into the path of the config file, or else it would refuse to read the file.

[Kixunil]

@thnkman what was the error message? Relative paths should work normally as any other.

[thnkman]

@thnkman what was the error message? Relative paths should work normally as any other.

IIRC It was along the lines of "No such file or directory"

[Kixunil]

Then you must've supplied a wrong path. --conf never failed me and never required me to cd or do whatever else.

[thnkman]

Then you must've supplied a wrong path. --conf never failed me and never required me to cd or do whatever else.

I spent some time trying to troubleshoot this. Here are my findings:

In my initscript, i have the following;
runuser -u "$USER" -- sh -c "$PRGNAM --conf $CONFDIR/config.toml >$LOGDIR/$PRGNAM.log 2>&1 & echo \$! >$PIDFILE"

When this line is executed, electrs will spit out a error:
Error: Failed to read configuration file electrs.toml: Permission denied (os error 13)

If i rename config.toml to electrs.toml:
Error: Failed to read configuration file /etc/electrs/electrs.toml: No such file or directory (os error 2)

Then, if i add --skip-default-conf-files to the runuser line in my initscript, every thing is fine.

This might be expected behavior, but it's a little counter intuitive, at least to me.

[Kixunil]

It's expected but I think we could improve the error message somehow. Electrs tries to read configuration from default locations first and merge it together with other things. --skip-default-conf-files is the correct way to handle your use case.