crowdsecurity/crowdsec · error

invalid limit in dsn: %w

Error message

invalid limit in dsn: %w

What it means

ConfigureByDSN parses the Loki acquisition DSN's query parameters. The 'limit' parameter must be a valid integer; if strconv.Atoi fails, this error wraps the parse failure and aborts configuration. It exists to fail fast on a malformed DSN rather than silently defaulting.

Source

Thrown at pkg/acquisition/modules/loki/config.go:190

			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)
		}

		l.Config.MaxFailureDuration = duration
	} else {
		l.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)
		}

		l.Config.Limit = limit
	} else {
		l.Config.Limit = 5000 // max limit allowed by loki
	}

	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)
		}

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

	if noReadyCheck := params.Get("no_ready_check"); noReadyCheck != "" {

View on GitHub (pinned to 909b515798)

Solutions

1. Set 'limit' to a plain integer in the DSN, e.g. loki://host:3100/?limit=5000
2. Remove the 'limit' parameter entirely to use the default of 5000 (Loki's max)
3. URL-encode the parameter if special characters are intended

Example fix

// before
loki://localhost:3100/?limit=10,000
// after
loki://localhost:3100/?limit=10000

limitRaw := params.Get("limit")
if limitRaw != "" {
    n, err := strconv.Atoi(limitRaw)
    if err != nil || n <= 0 {
        return fmt.Errorf("limit must be a positive integer, got %q", limitRaw)
    }
}

When it happens

Trigger: A DSN such as loki://host:3100/?limit=abc or limit=1_000 is passed to the Loki acquire configuration.

Common situations: Typos or pasted URLs where 'limit' contains units, commas, or quotes; template variables left unexpanded in acquis.yaml.

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

• loki query is mandatory
• delay_for should be a value between 1s and 5s
• empty loki host
• invalid log_level in dsn: %w
• invalid no_ready_check in dsn: %w

AI-assisted analysis of crowdsecurity/crowdsec@909b515798 (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/4acdec9081d27cfc. Report an issue: GitHub.