owasp-amass/amass · error

failed to load the configuration file: %v

Error message

failed to load the configuration file: %v

What it means

LoadSettings parses an INI configuration file with go-ini's LoadSources (case-insensitive keys, shadow values allowed). If the file cannot be read or parsed as INI, the underlying error is wrapped with this message.

Source

Thrown at cmd/oam_i2y/ini.go:118

// Database contains values required for connecting with graph databases.
type Database struct {
	System   string
	Primary  bool   `ini:"primary"`
	URL      string `ini:"url"`
	Username string `ini:"username"`
	Password string `ini:"password"`
	DBName   string `ini:"database"`
	Options  string `ini:"options"`
}

// LoadSettings parses settings from an .ini file and assigns them to the Config.
func (c *Config) LoadSettings(path string) error {
	cfg, err := ini.LoadSources(ini.LoadOptions{
		Insensitive:  true,
		AllowShadows: true,
	}, path)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("failed to load the configuration file: %v", err)
	}
	// Get the easy ones out of the way using mapping
	if err = cfg.MapTo(c); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("error mapping configuration settings to internal values: %v", err)
	}
	// Attempt to load a special mode of operation specified by the user
	if cfg.Section(ini.DefaultSection).HasKey("mode") {
		mode := cfg.Section(ini.DefaultSection).Key("mode").String()

		switch mode {
		case "passive":
			c.Passive = true
		case "active":
			c.Active = true
		}
	}

	loads := []func(cfg *ini.File) error{

View on GitHub (pinned to 79299dce87)

Solutions

1. Verify the file exists and is readable at the given path (os.Stat, ls -l).
2. Ensure the file is valid INI syntax — [section] headers and key=value pairs, correct encoding (UTF-8/ASCII).
3. Read the wrapped %v error for the precise cause (no such file vs permission denied vs parse error) and fix accordingly.

Example fix

// before
err := cfg.LoadSettings("/etc/amass/config.ini.bak2")
// after
path := "/etc/amass/config.ini"
if _, err := os.Stat(path); err != nil {
    log.Fatalf("config not found: %v", err)
}
err := cfg.LoadSettings(path)

if fi, err := os.Stat(path); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("config file missing: %w", err)
} else if fi.IsDir() {
    return fmt.Errorf("config path is a directory: %s", path)
}

if err := cfg.LoadSettings(path); err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "failed to load the configuration file") {
        // surface wrapped cause, prompt user for correct -i path
        return fmt.Errorf("check --config path %s: %w", path, err)
    }
}

When it happens

Trigger: Passing a path to a nonexistent file, a directory, a file with permission errors, or content that is not valid INI syntax (unclosed sections, garbage bytes) to Config.LoadSettings.

Common situations: Wrong path passed to oam_i2y (-i flag typo); config file with YAML/JSON content instead of INI; file deleted or renamed after deployment; encoding issues (UTF-16 exports from Windows tools).

Understand the failure class

Background: "Config file not found": what it means and how to fix it in docker-sync, Maven, Vagrant, Turborepo and other tools — this error's family across 60 libraries.

Related errors

• error mapping configuration settings to internal values: %v
• no resolver keys were found in the resolvers section
• failed to parse active setting, value is not a boolean
• bruteforce is not a map[string]interface{}
• bruteforce enabled is not a bool

AI-assisted analysis of owasp-amass/amass@79299dce87 (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/eabbd80214128ef5. Report an issue: GitHub.