[Bug]: unable to initialize

[ctron]

Steps to Reproduce

Run any step-ca command.

Your Environment

• OS - Fedora 39
• step-ca Version - CA/0.25.2

Expected Behavior

It gives instruction that work.

Actual Behavior

I get:

step-ca can't find or open the configuration file for your CA.
You may need to create a CA first by running `step ca init`.
Documentation: https://u.step.sm/docs/ca

Running step-ca init brings the same message.

Additional Context

No response

Contributing

Vote on this issue by adding a 👍 reaction. To contribute a fix for this issue, leave a comment (and link to your pull request, if you've opened one already).

[hslatman]

Hi @ctron,

To create a configuration for the CA, you'll need to install the step CLI and use that as step ca init. This will create a CA configuration file, which can then be used to run step-ca.

[ctron]

That feels a bit weird.

[hslatman]

I agree it can be a bit surprising and that it adds a bit more friction to getting started to using the CA, especially if you're using the CA for the first time, but step and step-ca are different components with different responsibilities. I would say they're somewhat similar in nature as systemctl and systemd.

An improvement I can imagine we could add is to look for step in the path when this message is returned to the user. If it's not found, we could suggest the user to install it. But note that the message already says step ca init; not step-ca init.

[ctron]

An improvement I can imagine we could add is to look for step in the path when this message is returned to the user. If it's not found, we could suggest the user to install it. But note that the message already says step ca init; not step-ca init.

Yes, that would definitely help.