--config expects directory not file

[dokterbob]

Version information:

go-ipfs version: 0.8.0-ce693d7
Repo version: 11
System version: amd64/linux
Golang version: go1.14.4

Description:

Override configuration file by using: ipfs --config=/tmp/config config show
Result:
Error: error loading plugins: open /tmp/config/config: not a directory
Expected results: dump of configuration JSON.

[aschmahmann]

We should add a new flag --repo and deprecate this one since the flag is about where the repo is located not just the config file.

[dokterbob]

The specific use case for the —config option would be to validate the configuration before applying it - very useful in deployment automation and/or production scenario’s.

[h1z1]

It's certainly ambiguous.. Having spent hours at one point trying to figure out what was broken, I'm not sure which is more incorrect, the help or the error. As per --help that should could be interpreted to mean a file:

  -c, --config               string - Path to the configuration file to use.

Just got in a habit of setting IPFS_PATH shrug

IPFS_PATH=${PWD} ipfs config show 

A config file can and probably should reside outside the repo itself.

[PrashantBtkl]

Hi, Im thinking of picking this issue.
As far as my understanding the config is always loaded from the repo with the default name as "config"
I am trying a fix where we can check the config with the --config flag correctly but not setting the config this way
because of this specification by @dokterbob

The specific use case for the —config option would be to validate the configuration before applying it

waiting for comments on this (any help on this would be appreciated)

[gammazero]

@PrashantBtkl There are two parts to this fix. The first is what @aschmahmann said above. The current --config flag should be --repo since it specifies the repo directory path. The second part is to implement a new --config flag that specifies the path to the config file only. If not specified, then this defaults to <repo_path>/config.

Implementing this will require coordinating changes in both go-ipfs-config and go-ipfs repos.