owasp-amass/amass · error

failed to get absolute path for resolver file: %w

Error message

failed to get absolute path for resolver file: %w

What it means

When a resolver entry is not an IP, loadResolverSettings treats it as a file path of resolvers and resolves it to an absolute path via c.AbsPathFromConfigDir. If that helper errors, the failure is wrapped in this error.

Source

Thrown at config/resolvers.go:194

	var resolversList []string
	for _, r := range resolvers {
		// Type assert the resolver to string
		rStr, ok := r.(string)
		if !ok {
			return fmt.Errorf("resolver entry %v is not a string", r)
		}

		// Check if rStr is an IP address.
		ip := net.ParseIP(rStr)
		if ip != nil {
			resolversList = append(resolversList, rStr)
			continue
		}

		// rStr is not an IP address, so we assume it is a file path.
		absPath, err := c.AbsPathFromConfigDir(rStr)
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("failed to get absolute path for resolver file: %w", err)
		}

		fileResolvers, err := c.loadResolversFromFile(absPath)
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("failed to load resolvers from file: %w", err)
		}

		resolversList = append(resolversList, fileResolvers...)

	}

	// Deduplicate the list of resolvers and assign to c.Resolvers.
	resolverIPs := stringset.Deduplicate(resolversList)

	if len(resolverIPs) == 0 {
		return errors.New("no valid resolvers were found")
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to 79299dce87)

Solutions

1. Use an absolute path for the resolver file in the config (e.g. /etc/amass/resolvers.txt).
2. Verify the config directory is correctly set/discoverable and that AbsPathFromConfigDir's wrapped cause (available via errors.Unwrap) is addressed.
3. Ensure the referenced file exists relative to the config directory, or create it.

Example fix

// before
resolvers:
  - "my-resolvers.txt"
// after
resolvers:
  - "/home/user/.config/amass/my-resolvers.txt"

if !filepath.IsAbs(rStr) {
    if _, err := os.Stat(filepath.Join(configDir, rStr)); err != nil {
        return fmt.Errorf("resolver file %s not found in config dir", rStr)
    }
}

if err := loadResolverSettings(); err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "absolute path for resolver file") {
        return fmt.Errorf("use absolute path for resolver file: %w", err)
    }
}

When it happens

Trigger: A resolver entry like 'resolvers.txt' whose relative path cannot be resolved against the config directory — e.g. the config dir is unknown/empty or path computation fails inside AbsPathFromConfigDir.

Common situations: Running with a custom config location the tool cannot anchor; referring to a resolver file by name that does not exist relative to the config dir; permissions preventing directory traversal.

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

• failed to obtain the output directory
• failed to obtain the path for the output directory
• failed to load resolvers from file: %w
• failed to get absolute path: %v
• failed to obtain the Amass output directory

AI-assisted analysis of owasp-amass/amass@79299dce87 (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/5d835dfc72bdfb83. Report an issue: GitHub.