If the configuration file exists, but in a chmod not accessible for the user, no rights check is done, and Python doesn't seem to wish to raise an error.
It will fail when the script needs a setting, but it should fail before with an explicit ''Can't read configuration file'' error.
Ysul (without rights to read /usr/local/etc/notifications.conf)
$ notifications Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/bin/notifications", line 180, in <module> app = initializeApplication() File "/usr/local/bin/notifications", line 138, in initializeApplication app['channel'] = getChannel(app['config']) File "/usr/local/bin/notifications", line 117, in getChannel return getConnection(config).channel() File "/usr/local/bin/notifications", line 107, in getConnection return getBrokerConnection(config) File "/usr/local/bin/notifications", line 44, in getBrokerConnection host=config['Broker']['Host'], File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/configparser.py", line 936, in __getitem__ raise KeyError(key) KeyError: 'Broker'