Testing as a Returning User

What to check the second time around: config repair, key rotation, and adding Sia to an existing local setup.

The first two tutorials cover a brand new install. This one covers what happens when you come back to an install you already have, since that’s a genuinely different code path, not just “run init again.”

Do this after you’ve already completed Testing the Local Backend at least once, so you have an existing setup to come back to.

Scenario 1: you deleted config.toml by accident

This is a real thing that happens, and it used to be dangerous: an older version of ObsidianLog would silently generate a brand new encryption key in this situation, making everything you’d already archived undecryptable. That’s fixed now, and this scenario is here specifically to prove it.

Find your config file (init printed its path when you ran it) and delete it:

rm ~/.config/obsidianlog/config.toml
./obsidianlog init

You’ll be asked all the setup questions again, since there’s no config file left to read your old answers from. That part is expected. What matters is what happens to your key. Answer the prompts the same way you did the first time (local backend), and watch for this line before the final summary:

Existing credentials preserved; rebuilding configuration.

That confirms your original encryption key survived. If you archived anything in the local backend tutorial, you can prove it directly:

./obsidianlog query --service tutorial --format human

If your original log line still comes back, the key really was preserved, not silently reset.

Scenario 2: rotating the key on purpose

Sometimes you do want a new key, for example if you think the old one was exposed. That’s what --force is for:

./obsidianlog init --force

This time you’ll see a warning that previously archived data will no longer be decryptable, and (unless you’re scripting with --non-interactive) a confirmation prompt before it proceeds. After confirming, a genuinely new key is generated. If you try the same query command above afterward, it will no longer be able to read data that was archived under the old key. That’s expected here since it’s the whole point of rotation.

Scenario 3: adding Sia to an existing local setup

If you completed the local backend tutorial and want to add Sia to that same install, rather than starting a separate one:

./obsidianlog init

When asked “Existing setup found… Reuse it?”, answer no. You’ll then be asked to confirm reconfiguring, and can choose sia this time instead of local. Your existing encryption key is preserved throughout, only a new Sia app key gets added to it.

Tell us how it went

As with the other tutorials, a feedback report helps, especially if any of these three scenarios behaved differently than described here. That’s exactly the kind of thing worth catching before a wider release.

What’s next

Haven’t tried Testing with Vector yet? That one proves a real log shipper can feed ObsidianLog, not just a single curl request. Once you’re done testing and want a real, ongoing setup rather than a scratch folder, see the Quickstart.