Subsequent invocation of `malai` when `.malai.id52` is present crashes

[siddhantk232]

here are some logs

/tmp/foo $ ls -al
drwxr-xr-x   - user 19 Jun 23:18  .
drwxrwxrwt   - root 19 Jun 23:18  ..
.rwxr-xr-x 25M user 19 Jun 23:16  malai_linux_x86_64

/tmp/foo $ ./malai_linux_x86_64 http 3000 --public
Malai: Sharing http://127.0.0.1:3000 at
https://fmdmb0buadpvinh6bekf79mrvrt7hr1ihpgnutgttknqvq359d70.kulfi.site
To avoid the public proxy, run your own with: malai http-bridge

Or use: malai browse kulfi://fmdmb0buadpvinh6bekf79mrvrt7hr1ihpgnutgttknqvq359d70
^C
Malai: Sharing http://127.0.0.1:3000 at
https://fmdmb0buadpvinh6bekf79mrvrt7hr1ihpgnutgttknqvq359d70.kulfi.site

Or use: malai browse kulfi://fmdmb0buadpvinh6bekf79mrvrt7hr1ihpgnutgttknqvq359d70
Press ctrl+c again to exit.
^C⏎

/tmp/foo $ ls -al
drwxr-xr-x   - user 19 Jun 23:18  .
drwxrwxrwt   - root 19 Jun 23:18  ..
.rw-r--r--  52 user 19 Jun 23:18  .malai.id52
.rwxr-xr-x 25M user 19 Jun 23:16  malai_linux_x86_64

/tmp/foo $ ./malai_linux_x86_64 http 3000 --public
failed to get identity
malai uses your system keyring for storing identities securely.
use `malai keygen` if system keyring is not available.
full error:
keyring: secret for fmdmb0buadpvinh6bekf79mrvrt7hr1ihpgnutgttknqvq359d70 has invalid length: 54

Location:
    /home/runner/work/kulfi/kulfi/kulfi-utils/src/secret.rs:71:36

/tmp/foo $

EDIT: attaching trace logs:

2025-06-19T19:26:01.087433Z  INFO malai: Exposing HTTP service on kulfi. port=3000 host="127.0.0.1" verbose=Verbosity { verbose: 0, quiet: 0, phantom: PhantomData<clap_verbosity_flag::ErrorLevel> }
2025-06-19T19:26:01.087574Z  INFO read_or_create_key: kulfi_utils::secret: No secret key found in environment or file, trying .malai.id52
2025-06-19T19:26:01.087598Z DEBUG read_or_create_key: keyring: creating entry with service kulfi, user fmdmb0buadpvinh6bekf79mrvrt7hr1ihpgnutgttknqvq359d70, and no target
2025-06-19T19:26:01.087607Z DEBUG read_or_create_key: keyring: created entry SsCredential { attributes: {"username": "fmdmb0buadpvinh6bekf79mrvrt7hr1ihpgnutgttknqvq359d70", "target": "default", "application": "rust-keyring", "service": "kulfi"}, label: "fmdmb0buadpvinh6bekf79mrvrt7hr1ihpgnutgttknqvq359d70@kulfi:default (keyring v4.0.0-rc.1)", target: Some("default") }
2025-06-19T19:26:01.087613Z DEBUG read_or_create_key: keyring: get secret from entry SsCredential { attributes: {"username": "fmdmb0buadpvinh6bekf79mrvrt7hr1ihpgnutgttknqvq359d70", "target": "default", "application": "rust-keyring", "service": "kulfi"}, label: "fmdmb0buadpvinh6bekf79mrvrt7hr1ihpgnutgttknqvq359d70@kulfi:default (keyring v4.0.0-rc.1)", target: Some("default") }
failed to get identity
malai uses your system keyring for storing identities securely.
use `malai keygen` if system keyring is not available.
full error:
keyring: secret for fmdmb0buadpvinh6bekf79mrvrt7hr1ihpgnutgttknqvq359d70 has invalid length: 54

Location:
    /home/runner/work/kulfi/kulfi/kulfi-utils/src/secret.rs:71:36

Originally posted by @overflowz in #29

[siddhantk232]

.malai.id52 has enter character in the end

This is a good suspect. When I ran malai http it created a .malai.id52 file with no trailing whitespaces (no newlines/enter char at the end). It is possible that you open the file in your text editor and the editor automatically puts a newline for your (at least my vim does that). We don't trim the file contents before checking for keyring entry - see these lines. Although, if this is the case then the error message should have said that the keyring entry was not found:

failed to get identity
malai uses your system keyring for storing identities securely.
use `malai keygen` if system keyring is not available.
full error:
No matching entry found in secure storage

Location:
    /Users/siddhant/projects/FTNet/kulfi-utils/src/secret.rs:86:27

It is possible that there is an entry with the key in the keyring but it is highly unlikely. How can you get a keyring entry with an id52+newline if we did not create it for you?

[amitu]

Trimming is perfectly okay. Let's do that to avoid such issues.

[overflowz]

Sorry, it wasn't newline (I used hexdump) -- it was my terminal displaying CRLF in the end (probably because it had none and told me that it inserted newline so prompt would look on new line).

But the issue still remains. Another weird thing I found is that, if I have .malai.secret-key, it does not create nor require .malai.id52 file and the rest is the same.

[amitu]

if I have .malai.secret-key, it does not create nor require .malai.id52 file.

This is by design. If you have secret-key you can derive the id52.

There is a "weirdness" / "incorrect" / not too great behaviour that if both files are present we first look at the secret file, and ignore the id52 file, which might be not what user intended.

Hopefully the new design that @siddhantk232 posted solves this mess.