[Spike] Setting directory for .crc folder

[Maurycy-Krzeminski]

Is there consideration to use XDG base directory, or maybe using some other named env variable that would allow to set where .crc folder should be?

From what i saw issue 220 about XDG was closed.

[anjannath]

If we change the crc home dir, we should also do automated migration of the config file to the new location. I think XDG base directory as the default and allowing users to override with $CRC_HOME_DIR both should be added

[vyasgun]

/assign

[vyasgun]

Please correct me if I am wrong -- The .crc directory stores the cache, machine info, and socket for communicating with the crc daemon and is used in multiple parts of the lifecycle (setup, start). Just setting the environment variable can create a discrepancy if the user sets it multiple times

export CRC_HOME_DIR=/tmp/crc1
crc start
crc stop
export CRC_HOME_DIR=/tmp/crc2

It is difficult to keep track of all the values the variable can take and migrating over and over does not seem like a feasible idea. (I made a draft PR for this)

My suggestion is to use crc config to store the path of the .crc directory which can be set and unset using the crc config command. This makes validation easier, it's more explicit, and easier to keep track of. Also, it reinforces the idea that we cannot have multiple .crc directories each having its own cache, socket etc.

[praveenkumar]

My suggestion is to use crc config to store the path of the .crc directory which can be set and unset using the crc config command. This makes validation easier, it's more explicit, and easier to keep track of. Also, it reinforces the idea that we cannot have multiple .crc directories each having its own cache, socket etc.

In this case also user can do following

crc config set base-directory foo
crc start
crc stop
crc config unset base-directory

One thing we can do as part config option is have a callback function which check if current set directory already have content or not, if it have let user know and ask for override otherwise carry on with provided option?

[vyasgun]

I was thinking we could migrate from the existing base directory (if nothing is set, we would use the default $HOME/.crc to the newly set one. (Unset could trigger reverse migration from the custom location to the default location).

[cfergeau]

My suggestion is to use crc config to store the path of the .crc directory which can be set and unset using the crc config command. This makes validation easier, it's more explicit, and easier to keep track of.

I'd first make that work well before thinking too much about corner cases (such has the user changing the base directory while using crc). Though a callback would make sense to check if there's already a configured directory. This callback could offer the user to migrate. But this is starting to get complicated ^^

The suggested approach will not solve the initial request to use the XDG directory structure, where we'd need to use ~/.cache/crc, ~/.local/share, and (.local/state and/or XDG_RUNTIME_DIR) (only mentioning this for clarity, not saying this has to be solved - it could be too late for that, though once we can relocate/migrate ~/.crc, we can think how hard it would be to have optional migration to XDG)

[gbraad]

XDG directory structure

Which complicates deployment on platforms other than Linux, so this might not have been the solution to begin with.

The question that has not been answered is the 'Why' is this requested?

• large files/storage requirement not available on the default location
• permissions maybe not available
• roaming profile or other issues with user directory on a network share/'removable media'
• ...