crowdsecurity/crowdsec · critical

unknown database type '%s'

Error message

unknown database type '%s'

What it means

ConnectionDialect maps the configured d.Type (mysql, sqlite, postgres, pgx, etc.) to a SQL dialect. If the type string does not match any known dialect it returns this error, which aborts NewClient before a database driver is ever opened. It is the strict validation guard against mistyped or unsupported database backends.

Source

Thrown at pkg/csconfig/database.go:235

	return connString, nil
}

func (d *DatabaseCfg) ConnectionDialect() (string, string, error) {
	switch d.Type {
	case "sqlite":
		return "sqlite3", dialect.SQLite, nil
	case "mysql":
		return "mysql", dialect.MySQL, nil
	case "pgx", "postgresql", "postgres":
		if d.Type != "pgx" {
			log.Debugf("database type '%s' is deprecated, switching to 'pgx' instead", d.Type)
		}

		return "pgx", dialect.Postgres, nil
	}

	return "", "", fmt.Errorf("unknown database type '%s'", d.Type)
}

func (d *DatabaseCfg) isSocketConfig() bool {
	return d.Host == "" && d.Port == 0 && d.DbPath != ""
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 909b515798)

Solutions

1. Set database.type to one of the supported values: mysql, sqlite, postgres, postgresql, or pgx.
2. For MariaDB, use type: mysql — the MySQL driver speaks the MariaDB wire protocol.
3. For PostgreSQL, prefer type: pgx (postgres/postgresql map to pgx anyway).
4. Check for trailing whitespace or wrong indentation in database.yaml that could corrupt the type value.

Example fix

// before (database.yaml)
database:
  type: psql
// after
database:
  type: pgx

var supported = []string{"mysql", "sqlite", "postgres", "postgresql", "pgx"}
if !slices.Contains(supported, strings.TrimSpace(dbCfg.Type)) {
    return fmt.Errorf("database.type %q not in %v", dbCfg.Type, supported)
}

if _, err := dbCfg.ConnectionDialect(); err != nil {
    log.Fatalf("invalid database config: %v", err) // fail fast with clear message
}

When it happens

Trigger: database.type in the config yaml is set to anything other than mysql, sqlite, postgres, postgresql, or pgx — e.g. type: mysqlb, type: psql, or type: mariadb.

Common situations: Typos in database.yaml after editing, copy-pasted configs from other tools (e.g. 'psql'), or configs written for a hypothetical backend (mariadb) that crowdsec does not declare as a type.

Understand the failure class

Background: Invalid enum value errors: "Unknown type", "Invalid scope", "must be one of" — when a string is not on the library's allowed list — this error's family across 23 libraries.

Related errors

• path must start with /
• basic_auth is selected, but basic_auth is not provided
• basic_auth is selected, but username is not provided
• basic_auth is selected, but password is not provided
• headers is selected, but headers is not provided

AI-assisted analysis of crowdsecurity/crowdsec@909b515798 (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/083c1c74b552f772. Report an issue: GitHub.