yacy.conf parser doesnt ignore comments, causes misleading error message

[sumodx]

The Docker container fails to start if the yacy.conf file contains a commented-out javastart_Xmx key in addition to an active one.

This fragile parsing leads to a cryptic Java error message (Error: Could not find or load main class...) that misdirects troubleshooting efforts away from the true root cause, which is a simple configuration file formatting issue.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create a docker-compose.yml file:

   version: '3.8'
   services:
     yacy:
       image: yacy/yacy_search_server:latest
       container_name: yacy-bug-test
       volumes:
         - ./yacy_data:/opt/yacy_search_server/DATA
         - ./yacy.conf:/opt/yacy_search_server/DATA/SETTINGS/yacy.conf

2. Get the default configuration file:

   # Create a data directory to satisfy the volume mount
   mkdir ./yacy_data
   
   # Use a temporary container to extract the default yacy.conf
   docker run --rm --name yacy-tmp yacy/yacy_search_server:latest cat /opt/yacy_search_server/DATA/SETTINGS/yacy.conf > ./yacy.conf

3. Modify the yacy.conf to trigger the bug:
   Edit the yacy.conf file. Find the line javastart_Xmx=Xmx600m. Comment it out and add a new, active line with a different value, like this:

   # javastart_Xmx=Xmx600m
   javastart_Xmx=Xmx2048m

4. Attempt to start the container:

   docker-compose up

Expected Behavior

The container should start successfully. The startup script should parse the yacy.conf file, ignore any commented-out lines, and apply the single active javastart_Xmx=Xmx2048m setting.

Actual Behavior

The container immediately fails and enters a restart loop. The logs show the following misleading error, incorrectly identifying the memory value as a "main class":

Error: Could not find or load main class Xmx2048m
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: Xmx2048m

Analysis and Suggested Fix

The root cause appears to be a too simple parsing method, which likely finds all occurrences of the javastart_Xmx string without correctly filtering out commented lines. This results in a malformed java command being constructed.

A more robust parsing method would solve this. The script should be modified to ensure it ignores lines that begin with a # (or any non-alphanumeric character) before selecting the key-value pair.

For example, a grep command like grep '^javastart_Xmx' yacy.conf would be less likely to fail than one that finds the string anywhere on the line.

Thank you for your work on this project.

[okybaca]

@sumodx , thanks for brilliant bug-report!

does the grep fix work in your case?

are you able to PR that?