[Bug]: Fails to create a directory in /var/opt due to permission by default

[PythonHacker24]

Bug Description

When I was installing flipt CLI with the "curl" method, I had an issue of failing to create a file in the "/var/opt" where the flipt.db is stored. This is actually a very basic issue but needs to be addressed since it becomes very confusing in the first installation. I remember I had to create "flipt" directory on by own and "chmod 777" it (which Mark suggested me).

Version Info

v1.44.0

Search

• I searched for other open and closed issues before opening this

Steps to Reproduce

Download Flipt CLI on a fresh Ubuntu Server with a non-root user

Expected Behavior

It must create the folder by its own and continue to start flipt on the machine without throwing this error.

Additional Context

OS: Ubuntu (latest)
DB: Sqllite

Let me know where this error is triggered in the golang code. I would love to work on fixing this issue.

[PythonHacker24]

The problem is not with fixing it manually, but it occurs in a way that creates traction for new users on freshly installed Ubuntu systems.

func defaultDatabaseRoot() (string, error) { return "/var/opt/flipt", nil }

Since this is returning the default path, it would be better if we could change it to something that has better permissions as non-root users since it's not safe to take passwords for sudo usage from the flipt CLI.

I am very new to this kind of issue, so let me know if this is feasible or not.

[markphelps]

yeah i see what you are saying, but its quite hard to change the default in a backward compatible way. since if we change the default for a new version of flipt, it wont find any pre-existing databases at /var/opt/flipt/flipt.db and will then create an entirely new one on startup at whatever new location we pick

what i think we should try to do is first check if it can read/write to /var/opt/flipt, and if not then change the default URL to somewhere else, perhaps just os.UserConfigDir() which will match the non-linux hosts

[PythonHacker24]

That sounds reasonable, but this needs to be resolved quickly. This is a starting hurdle in fresh servers and takes time to troubleshoot from the user's point of view. In my case, I remember you helped me out. I think I should first update the troubleshooting guide and add this before we fix this issue.

I think this page: https://docs.flipt.io/introduction would be a better place to mention the troubleshooting since this is where it all starts. Let me know what you think.