[COUCHDB-1446] Config settings input validation

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Won't Fix
• Affects Version/s: 1.2
• Component/s: Database Core
• Labels: config
• Skill Level: Regular Contributors Level (Easy to Medium)
• Assignee: Jason Smith
• Reporter: Jason Smith
• Created: 20/Mar/12 04:14
• Updated: 02/Sep/18 06:39
• Resolved: 02/Sep/18 06:39

Description

Today I received a bug report from a user who thought CouchDB might be relaxing and evaluate an arithmetic expression in the config. (That makes sense, since it seems to evaluate erlang terms elsewhere.)

https://getsatisfaction.com/iriscouch/topics/my_couchdb_is_broken_after_putting_a_badarg_for_a_configuration_value

It would be nice for CouchDB to validate config input, particularly when bad values permanently take it offline. (In this case, it returns 500 for all subsequent requests.)

IMO, a good bang-for-buck is to have three basic value types:

1. String
2. Erlang tuple
3. Integer

And each setting knows what type it must be.

Issue Links

• is duplicated by: COUCHDB-1215 Improve _config error handling by validating certain (if not all) values based on their keys