What causes "invalid limit in dsn: %w" in crowdsecurity/crowdsec?

Set `limit` to a plain decimal integer, e.g. `limit=10000`

invalid limit in dsn: %w

Error message

invalid limit in dsn: %w

What it means

ConfigureByDSN parses the optional `limit` DSN parameter with strconv.Atoi, which requires a plain integer. Any non-numeric value causes the error to be wrapped with "invalid limit in dsn" and configuration to fail.

Source

Thrown at pkg/acquisition/modules/victorialogs/config.go:179

			return fmt.Errorf("invalid since in dsn: %w", err)
		}
	}

	if maxFailureDuration := params.Get("max_failure_duration"); maxFailureDuration != "" {
		duration, err := time.ParseDuration(maxFailureDuration)
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("invalid max_failure_duration in dsn: %w", err)
		}

		s.Config.MaxFailureDuration = duration
	} else {
		s.Config.MaxFailureDuration = 5 * time.Second // for OneShot mode it doesn't make sense to have longer duration
	}

	if limit := params.Get("limit"); limit != "" {
		limit, err := strconv.Atoi(limit)
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("invalid limit in dsn: %w", err)
		}

		s.Config.Limit = limit
	}

	if logLevel := params.Get("log_level"); logLevel != "" {
		level, err := log.ParseLevel(logLevel)
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("invalid log_level in dsn: %w", err)
		}

		s.Config.LogLevel = level
		s.logger.Logger.SetLevel(level)
	}

	s.Config.URL = fmt.Sprintf("%s://%s", scheme, u.Host)
	if u.User != nil {
		s.Config.Auth.Username = u.User.Username()

View on GitHub (pinned to 909b515798)

Solutions

Set `limit` to a plain decimal integer, e.g. `limit=10000`
Remove spaces, separators and unit suffixes (no commas, underscores or "k")
Omit the parameter to use the default limit
Check the wrapped strconv error for the offending input

Example fix

// before
url: victorialogs+http://127.0.0.1:8428?limit=10,000
// after
url: victorialogs+http://127.0.0.1:8428?limit=10000

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

const limit = p.searchParams.get("limit")
if (limit && !/^\d+$/.test(limit)) {
  throw new Error(`invalid limit: ${limit}`)
}

Prevention

Use plain decimal integers without separators or suffixes
Quote DSN strings in YAML to avoid shell/YAML mangling of values
Spot-check the parsed config with cscli after edits

When it happens

Trigger: Setting `limit=` in the DSN to a value Atoi cannot parse, e.g. `limit=1000 events`, `limit=1_000`, or an empty-but-present value is skipped, but `limit=0x10` fails.

Common situations: Copy-pasting formatted numbers with separators or suffixes ("10k"), or quoting/spacing mistakes in acquis.yaml; the limit caps the number of log entries fetched per query.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid value" and "allowed values are" config errors: what your library rejected and how to fix it — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of crowdsecurity/crowdsec@909b515798 (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6d1b0d5ca3d81a3c. Report an issue: GitHub.