nyx Error: "Unable to save configuration ([551] Unable to write configuration to disk.)"

[T0rr0]

Got this error message when I want to save (as root) the torrc after editing the config in nyx.

[atagar]

Hi T0rr0, sorry about the delay. This looks to be arising because your torrc has "%include" entries which would get overwritten. Tor raises this error at the following when we don't provide a 'force' flag...

https://gitweb.torproject.org/tor.git/tree/src/feature/control/control_cmd.c#n436

I should change Nyx to do the following...

• Issue a SAVECONF without the force flag.
• If this errors with a 551 response (like this) provide a message cautioning that overwriting your torrc is risky.
• If the user says so do so then re-issue SAVECONF with the force flag.

I won't get to this for a while. In the meantime I'd suggest managing your torrc by hand.

Thanks for reporting this!

[tsekityam]

I got the same error, but I don't have %include enabled.

 │ 244 ## Configuration options can be imported from files or folders using the %include
 │ 245 ## option with the value being a path. This path can have wildcards. Wildcards are
 │ 246 ## expanded first, using lexical order. Then, for each matching file or folder, the following
 │ 247 ## rules are followed: if the path is a file, the options from the file will be parsed as if
 │ 248 ## they were written where the %include option is. If the path is a folder, all files on that
 │ 249 ## folder will be parsed following lexical order. Files starting with a dot are ignored. Files
 │ 250 ## on subfolders are ignored.
 │ 251 ## The %include option can be used recursively.
 │ 252 #%include /etc/torrc.d/*.conf

Here is the messaged printed to syslog when the error occur.

Jan 19 16:17:46 ip-172-26-9-145 Tor[42673]: Renaming old configuration file to "/etc/tor/torrc.orig.1"
Jan 19 16:17:46 ip-172-26-9-145 Tor[42673]: Couldn't rename configuration file "/etc/tor/torrc" to "/etc/tor/torrc.orig.1": Read-only file system

The same error happens on my other relay, in this relay, the error log is

Jan 19 16:31:01 instance-20210117-1235 Tor[460279]: Renaming old configuration file to "/etc/tor/torrc.orig.1"
Jan 19 16:31:01 instance-20210117-1235 Tor[460279]: Couldn't rename configuration file "/etc/tor/torrc" to "/etc/tor/torrc.orig.1": Read-only file system
Jan 19 16:31:04 instance-20210117-1235 sudo[789524]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user toranon

Looks like my tor process is not running in root, so they couldn't write into the /etc/tor/ directory. Perhaps add write permission to the tor process will solve the issue