What causes "failed to get filesystem type: %w" in crowdsecurity/crowdsec?

Check the path exists (os.Stat) before calling GetFSType

failed to get filesystem type: %w

Error message

failed to get filesystem type: %w

What it means

The FreeBSD build of GetFSType calls unix.Statfs on the path; any syscall failure (ENOENT, EACCES, ELOOP...) is wrapped as 'failed to get filesystem type'. The function never inspects the cause itself — the underlying error is preserved for the caller.

Source

Thrown at pkg/fsutil/getfstype_freebsd.go:15

//go:build freebsd

package fsutil

import (
	"fmt"

	"golang.org/x/sys/unix"
)

func GetFSType(path string) (string, error) {
	var fsStat unix.Statfs_t

	if err := unix.Statfs(path, &fsStat); err != nil {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("failed to get filesystem type: %w", err)
	}

	return unix.ByteSliceToString(fsStat.Fstypename[:]), nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 909b515798)

Solutions

Check the path exists (os.Stat) before calling GetFSType
Read the wrapped errno after the colon to identify the syscall failure (ENOENT vs EACCES etc.)
Verify the process has permission to stat the target path
Re-run after fixing path/permissions; on FreeBSD no extra privileges are normally needed for statfs

Example fix

// before: unguarded call
fsType, err := fsutil.GetFSType(logPath)
// after: guard existence first
if _, err := os.Stat(logPath); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("path gone: %w", err)
}
fsType, err := fsutil.GetFSType(logPath)

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

if _, err := os.Stat(path); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("cannot stat %s: %w", path, err)
}

Try / catch

fsType, err := fsutil.GetFSType(path)
if err != nil {
    var perr *os.PathError
    if errors.As(err, &perr) && errors.Is(perr.Err, syscall.ENOENT) {
        return "", nil // file vanished (rotation); skip
    }
    return "", err
}

Prevention

Re-stat the path if files may be rotated/deleted concurrently
Check path existence and permissions before probing mount types
Unwrap the wrapped errno to distinguish ENOENT vs EACCES handling
On FreeBSD, no elevated privileges are needed for statfs — investigate other causes first

When it happens

Trigger: Calling GetFSType(path) on FreeBSD where unix.Statfs fails: path doesn't exist, no permission on a parent directory, path too long, or filesystem unavailable.

Common situations: Checking mount types of log files that were deleted/rotated between listing and stat; probing paths on read-only or restricted mount points; running with insufficient privileges.

Understand the failure class

Background: "File not found" and ENOENT errors: why libraries can't find a file that should exist — this error's family across 50 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of crowdsecurity/crowdsec@909b515798 (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1da7d848243c7a38. Report an issue: GitHub.