owasp-amass/amass · error

failed to load the configuration file

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.

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
• alterations enabled is not a bool
• alterations is not a map[string]interface
• alterations wordlist_file is not an array
• 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.

Appendix: 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{

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