Feature request: change "home" directory location, and/or support XDG Base Directory spec

[gwerbin]

Description

It would be really nice if we could change the location of the Colima "home" directory to something other than ~/.colima.

For example, I tend to create directories in ~/.local/opt for tools like this, so it would be nice if I could set export COLIMA_HOME=$HOME/.local/opt/colima in my system configuration.

Alternatively, it would be nice if Colima supported the XDG Base Directory Specification. The config files would be located in XDG_CONFIG_HOME, the daemon socket could be located in XDG_STATE_HOME, etc.

I think many people nowadays like to keep as few "dotfiles" in their home directory as possible, and this would be a nice quality of life addition for those users.

[abiosoft]

I am onboard with this.

[kamalsacranie]

2nd this feature! it would be a lovely addition if at all possible!

[watersb]

Here's a patch, briefly tested on macOS 13.4

It defers to using $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/colima, then os.UserConfigDir().

We may wish to additionally consider an environment variable like COLIMA_HOME, which corresponds to LIMA_HOME in the Lima tool...

colima-XDGBaseDir.patch

[OJFord]

I installed and started colima, and it created ~/.colima

I ran colima stop && mv ~/.colima ~/.config/colima

Then colima start recreated and used ~/.colima (I noticed because colima start -edit showed it had lost the changes I made to colima template before the mv).

What am I doing wrong?

colima version 0.6.8

[Rahlir]

I installed and started colima, and it created ~/.colima

I ran colima stop && mv ~/.colima ~/.config/colima

Then colima start recreated and used ~/.colima (I noticed because colima start -edit showed it had lost the changes I made to colima template before the mv).

What am I doing wrong?

colima version 0.6.8

I have a same problem on macOS Sonoma...

[Rahlir]

I installed and started colima, and it created ~/.colima
I ran colima stop && mv ~/.colima ~/.config/colima
Then colima start recreated and used ~/.colima (I noticed because colima start -edit showed it had lost the changes I made to colima template before the mv).
What am I doing wrong?

colima version 0.6.8

I have a same problem on macOS Sonoma...

I guess it has something to do with this, but I have no idea why there is this exception in the code...

[OJFord]

Ah, nice find, I was also using macOS.

Can that be removed @abiosoft?

[abiosoft]

It is being removed and would be part of the next release.

[dimitarvp]

I have noticed the comment by @abiosoft is from 29th of July and 0.7.0 release is dated 30th of July so I am not sure if my problem is scheduled for a fix, or it is deemed fixed but it's actually not.

With colima 0.7.0 and after doing mv ~/.colima ~/.config/colima (I was prompted to do that by colima) then colima start fails:

INFO[0000] starting colima
INFO[0000] runtime: docker
INFO[0000] starting ...                                  context=vm
> "[hostagent] failed to exit SSH master" error="failed to execute `ssh -O exit -p 55533 127.0.0.1`, out=\"Control socket connect(/Users/dimi/.config/colima/_lima/colima/ssh.sock): No such file or directory\\r\\n\": exit status 255"
> [hostagent] Shutting down QEMU with ACPI
> [hostagent] Failed to remove SSH binding for port 55533
> "[hostagent] failed to open the QMP socket \"/Users/dimi/.config/colima/_lima/colima/qmp.sock\", forcibly killing QEMU" error="dial unix /Users/dimi/.config/colima/_lima/colima/qmp.sock: connect: connection refused"
> [hostagent] QEMU has already exited
> exiting, status={Running:false Degraded:false Exiting:true Errors:[] SSHLocalPort:0} (hint: see "/Users/dimi/.config/colima/_lima/colima/ha.stderr.log")
FATA[0001] error starting vm: error at 'starting': exit status 1

Doing the opposite move -- mv ~/.config/colima ~/.colima -- makes colima work again.

Is this scheduled for a fix or it got under the radar? I am on macOS Sonoma 14.6.

[abiosoft]

@dimitarvp that should not happen. I would do a bit more testing on my end to see if I can reproduce your experience.

[dimitarvp]

Disclosure: I made zero effort in fixing anything at all, I only issued the mv command and attempted colima start. If there's anything else needed, like maybe rm-ing or touch-ing files / dirs, let me know.

[abiosoft]

Disclosure: I made zero effort in fixing anything at all, I only issued the mv command and attempted colima start. If there's anything else needed, like maybe rm-ing or touch-ing files / dirs, let me know.

Yeah, there should indeed be zero efforts. It should just work.

Thanks for the info.

[tj-smith47]

This is still not working on 0.8.1. Moving to XDG_CONFIG_HOME, then starting / restarting generates another ~/.colima. I really only made the move to make the warnings go away - can we at least remove those until this is resolved?