Allow to specify a configuration folder location instead of the default ~/.sfdx or %USERPROFILE%\.sfdx

[mokchend]

This repository only supports the Salesforce CLI Core libraries if you have a feature request that is not related to the Core Libraries but instead to the Salesforce CLI or the force commands please submit your issue to the forcedotcome/cli repo not this one.

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
I'm always frustrated when once I have setup my sfdx aliases, and switch my OS: in docker, in WSL2, in VM ... I lost all conf DX config & alias as i'm not able to specify my own (shared) .sfdx directory amongs differents OS.
Please provide a parameter (defined as optionnal) to specify our own .sfdx directory location.

Describe the solution you'd like
Require the ability to specify a configuration folder that handle the DX (hidden) folder, by default on your user home directory called .sfdx

On Mac OS and Linux, you can find your DX config folder in ~/.sfdx
On Windows, you can use %USERPROFILE%.sfdx

Describe alternatives you've considered
This option is usefull when you want to share your SFDX config folder betwen multiple OS, docker machine or WSL2

Additional context
N/A

[Exordian]

Please also move from ~/.sfdx to the XDG spec, a library for that would be [1]. This will also make the config directory configurable.

[1] https://github.com/folder/xdg

[R0Wi]

If we would for example introduce a new environment variable SFDX_DIR (or the newer SF_DIR), one could allow the end user to overwrite the global sfdx/sf state folders by adjusting these lines to something like:

  public static get SFDX_DIR(): string {
    const baseDir = env.getString('SFDX_DIR', os.homedir());
    return path.join(baseDir, Global.SFDX_STATE_FOLDER);
  }

@WillieRuemmele is there any interest in incorporating such a feature?

[ragoergens]

@R0Wi I'd like to share my .sdfx folder between Windows and WSL2.

• Summary: symlinking fails due to a permissions issue, fallback to copy Windows -> Linux.
• The challenge for a shared directory between different OSs/VMs are the different security mechanisms/requirements

Experimentation

• If I just create a symlink, ~/.sfdx to /mnt/c/Users/%username%/.sfdx
  • The symlink is being followed but sf org list says, for all connections:
    Warning: The auth file for rene.goergens@[...] is invalid.
    [...]
    No Orgs found
• If I manually create an empty ~/.sfdx and do cp /mnt/c/Users/%username%/.sfdx/* .sfdx, the result is the same:
  Warning: The auth file for rene.goergens@[...] is invalid.
  [...]
  No Orgs found
• If I use sf to create a connection under WSL2 so that ~/.sfdx gets created by sf, suddenly things are looking better:
  • Replacing the key in key.json with the one from /mnt/c/Users/%username%/.sfdx/key.json and copying the rest of the files works!
  • The gotcha: under Linux, sf requires the correct file permissions for key.json, otherwise it will say "The auth file for ... is invalid."
    The correct permissions are: -rw------- (chmod 600, as created under Linux), not -rwxr-xr-x (chmod 755, as copied from Windows)

My solution

• So to use Windows/Linux in a master/slave configuration, upon WSL2 launch I want to:
  • Flush the Linux side: rm ~/.sfdx/*
  • Copy from Windows: cp /mnt/c/Users/%username%/.sfdx/* ~/.sfdx
  • Set the correct permissions: chmod 600 ~/.sfdx/key.json
• So I put the following in my ~/.profile (replace %username% with actual username):

# flush .sfdx and copy connections from Windows
if [ -d "$HOME/.sfdx" ] ; then
    rm ~/.sfdx/*
    cp /mnt/c/Users/%username%/.sfdx/* ~/.sfdx
    chmod 600 ~/.sfdx/key.json
fi