crowdsecurity/crowdsec · error

can't get absolute path of '%s': %w

Error message

can't get absolute path of '%s': %w

What it means

installAppsecRuleItem fails while resolving the hub item's absolute source path (filepath.Abs on HubPath + item.RemotePath). filepath.Abs only fails on malformed relative paths (e.g. unrecoverable working-directory errors), so this almost always indicates a broken hub index or hub path state.

Source

Thrown at pkg/hubtest/appsecrule.go:17

package hubtest

import (
	"fmt"
	"os"
	"path/filepath"
	"strings"

	log "github.com/sirupsen/logrus"

	"github.com/crowdsecurity/crowdsec/pkg/cwhub"
)

func (t *HubTestItem) installAppsecRuleItem(item *cwhub.Item) error {
	sourcePath, err := filepath.Abs(filepath.Join(t.HubPath, item.RemotePath))
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("can't get absolute path of '%s': %w", sourcePath, err)
	}

	sourceFilename := filepath.Base(sourcePath)

	// runtime/hub/appsec-rules/author/appsec-rule
	hubDirAppsecRuleDest := filepath.Join(t.RuntimeHubPath, filepath.Dir(item.RemotePath))

	// runtime/appsec-rules/
	itemTypeDirDest := fmt.Sprintf("%s/appsec-rules/", t.RuntimePath)

	if err := createDirs([]string{hubDirAppsecRuleDest, itemTypeDirDest}); err != nil {
		return err
	}

	// runtime/hub/appsec-rules/crowdsecurity/rule.yaml
	hubDirAppsecRulePath := filepath.Join(itemTypeDirDest, sourceFilename)
	if err := Copy(sourcePath, hubDirAppsecRulePath); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("unable to copy '%s' to '%s': %w", sourcePath, hubDirAppsecRulePath, err)

View on GitHub (pinned to 909b515798)

Solutions

1. Run 'cscli hub update' to rebuild a clean hub index, then retry the test installation
2. Verify t.HubPath is a valid absolute path and the appsec-rule exists at HubPath/RemotePath
3. Ensure the process working directory exists and is accessible (filepath.Abs needs it for relative paths)

Example fix

// before
hub := &HubTestItem{HubPath: ""}
hub.installAppsecRule("crowdsecurity/vpatch-priv-esc")
// after
hub := &HubTestItem{HubPath: "/etc/crowdsec/hub"}
hub.installAppsecRule("crowdsecurity/vpatch-priv-esc")

abs, err := filepath.Abs(filepath.Join(hubPath, item.RemotePath))
if err != nil {
	log.Fatalf("bad hub path for %s: %v", item.Name, err)
}
if _, err := os.Stat(abs); err != nil {
	log.Fatalf("missing rule file %s: run 'cscli hub update'", abs)
}

if err := t.installAppsecRule(name); err != nil {
	if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "can't get absolute path") {
		// refresh hub index and retry once
	}
	return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling installAppsecRule with a name that resolves to a hub item whose RemotePath joined with t.HubPath cannot be made absolute — realistically only when filepath.Abs gets an error from the working directory lookup or the joined path is pathological.

Common situations: Corrupt hub index entry with an empty/invalid RemotePath; running with a deleted or inaccessible current working directory (filepath.Abs relies on it for relative paths); HubPath misconfigured to an odd relative value.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid URL" errors: why new URL(), URI.parse, and reqwest::Url reject your string — missing scheme, whitespace, and bad path format — this error's family across 39 libraries.

Related errors

• no appsec_config provided
• plugins are enabled, but config_paths.plugin_dir is not defi
• please provide a data directory with the 'data_dir' directiv
• no hub configuration provided
• too many levels of symbolic links

AI-assisted analysis of crowdsecurity/crowdsec@909b515798 (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e59ba0bfbbd6276d. Report an issue: GitHub.