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How to relocate or inspect the state directory

Use WHZBOX_STATE_DIR when you want whzbox to read and write state somewhere other than the default XDG path.

Prerequisites​

  • The whzbox binary on your PATH

Steps​

1. Override the state directory​

export WHZBOX_STATE_DIR=/tmp/whzbox-demo
whzbox status

With this environment variable set, whzbox uses /tmp/whzbox-demo/state.json.

2. Inspect the directory and file permissions​

ls -ld "$WHZBOX_STATE_DIR"
ls -l "$WHZBOX_STATE_DIR/state.json"

When the file exists, the expected permissions are:

  • directory: 0700
  • file: 0600

3. Inspect the file contents​

jq . "$WHZBOX_STATE_DIR/state.json"

The state file contains the cached Whizlabs session and any cached sandboxes.

Verification​

Unset the override and compare:

unset WHZBOX_STATE_DIR
whzbox status

Without the override, whzbox falls back to $XDG_STATE_HOME/whzbox or ~/.local/state/whzbox.

Troubleshooting​

Problem: the file loads with a permissions error​

Fix the permissions:

chmod 700 "$WHZBOX_STATE_DIR"
chmod 600 "$WHZBOX_STATE_DIR/state.json"

Problem: I want to inspect the default path​

If XDG_STATE_HOME is unset, the default directory is:

~/.local/state/whzbox