crowdsecurity/crowdsec · error

allowlist %s not found

Error message

allowlist %s not found

What it means

DeleteAllowList deletes an allowlist's items then the allowlist row itself, matched by name and from_console flag. After the delete Exec, if zero rows were removed it means no allowlist with that exact name (and console origin) existed, so the function reports 'allowlist %s not found'. Note the items delete already ran, so this error fires after a successful (empty) delete.

Source

Thrown at pkg/database/allowlists.go:59

func (c *Client) DeleteAllowList(ctx context.Context, name string, fromConsole bool) error {
	nbDeleted, err := c.Ent.AllowListItem.Delete().Where(allowlistitem.HasAllowlistWith(allowlist.NameEQ(name), allowlist.FromConsoleEQ(fromConsole))).Exec(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("unable to delete allowlist items: %w", err)
	}

	c.Log.Debugf("deleted %d items from allowlist %s", nbDeleted, name)

	nbDeleted, err = c.Ent.AllowList.
		Delete().
		Where(allowlist.NameEQ(name), allowlist.FromConsoleEQ(fromConsole)).
		Exec(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("unable to delete allowlist: %w", err)
	}

	if nbDeleted == 0 {
		return fmt.Errorf("allowlist %s not found", name)
	}

	return nil
}

func (c *Client) DeleteAllowListByID(ctx context.Context, name string, allowlistID string, fromConsole bool) error {
	nbDeleted, err := c.Ent.AllowListItem.Delete().Where(allowlistitem.HasAllowlistWith(allowlist.AllowlistIDEQ(allowlistID), allowlist.FromConsoleEQ(fromConsole))).Exec(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("unable to delete allowlist items: %w", err)
	}

	c.Log.Debugf("deleted %d items from allowlist %s", nbDeleted, name)

	nbDeleted, err = c.Ent.AllowList.
		Delete().
		Where(allowlist.AllowlistIDEQ(allowlistID), allowlist.FromConsoleEQ(fromConsole)).
		Exec(ctx)
	if err != nil {

View on GitHub (pinned to 909b515798)

Solutions

  1. List existing allowlists (cscli allowlists list or Client.ListAllowLists) and use the exact name shown
  2. Match the fromConsole flag: use the console-subcommand variant for console-managed allowlists, the local one for local ones
  3. If deleting by ID, call DeleteAllowListByID instead of DeleteAllowList
  4. Treat the error as idempotent: ignore 'not found' if your goal is just to ensure the allowlist is gone

Example fix

// before
cscli allowlists delete my-allwlist
// after
cscli allowlists list   # confirm exact name
cscli allowlists delete my-allowlist
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

lists, err := client.ListAllowLists(ctx, false)
if err != nil { return err }
found := false
for _, l := range lists {
    if l.Name == name && l.FromConsole == fromConsole { found = true; break }
}
if !found { return fmt.Errorf("allowlist %q does not exist; nothing to delete", name) }

Try / catch

if err := client.DeleteAllowList(ctx, name, fromConsole); err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "not found") { /* already gone: treat as success */ } else { return err }
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Calling Client.DeleteAllowList(ctx, name, fromConsole) with a name that does not exist in the allowlists table, or an existing allowlist whose FromConsole flag does not match the fromConsole argument (the WHERE clause includes FromConsoleEQ).

Common situations: Typo in 'cscli allowlists delete <name>'; deleting a console-managed allowlist locally without passing the right origin; allowlist already deleted in a prior run or on another node sharing the same database; name vs allowlist_id confusion (delete by name when only an ID is known).

Understand the failure class

Background: "Not found" and "does not exist" errors: why "Task not found", "No such folder", and "Can't find" fire when a lookup comes back empty — this error's family across 14 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of crowdsecurity/crowdsec@909b515798 (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a8f195595d899367. Report an issue: GitHub.