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I have powershell task configured in azure build pipelines to merge changes from dev into master of my github public repo and push changes to master. I am getting

fatal: could not read Username for 'https://github.com': terminal prompts disabled

Note:

  • I have configured my gitconfig with my username and emailid.
  • The git push is working fine when I do modifications in files and do commit and push but its throwing this error when i do merge and push
  • I have sufficient privilege to push in the branch

Any help on this would be much appreciated. In case of more information needed, comment in this thread.

This is the actual snippet.

$branchName = $env:BRANCH_NAME;

Write-Host "Getting SHA for last commit in the latest release" -ForegroundColor Blue;
$latestReleaseCommitSHA = git rev-list --tags --max-count=1;

if([string]::IsNullOrEmpty($latestReleaseCommitSHA)) {
    Write-Host "Unable to get the SHA for last commit in latest release" -ForegroundColor Red;
    EXIT 1;
}

Write-Host "SHA for last commit in the latest release is '$($latestReleaseCommitSHA)'" -ForegroundColor Green;

Write-Host "Merging Changes till '$($latestReleaseCommitSHA)'" -ForegroundColor Blue;
git merge $latestReleaseCommitSHA

Write-Host "Checking Conflicted Files";
$conflictedFiles = git diff --name-only --diff-filter=U

if (-Not [string]::IsNullOrEmpty($conflictedFiles)) {
    Write-Host "Unable to Merge" -ForegroundColor Red;
    Write-Host "There are conflicts in below files:" -ForegroundColor Cyan;
    Write-Host -Object $conflictedFiles -ForegroundColor Cyan;
    EXIT 1;
}

Write-Host "Merged changes to '$($branchName)'" -ForegroundColor Green;

Write-Host "Pushing changes." -ForegroundColor Blue;
git push origin HEAD:$branchName

Write-Host "Pushed the changes to the $($branchName) branch." -ForegroundColor Green;
Muthurathinam
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  • probably means it prompts for something when you try to do the push, try doing the same locally and figure out how to fix it – 4c74356b41 Apr 08 '19 at 07:13
  • by trying locally means in my own machine instead of azure pipelines or to the local repo ? – Muthurathinam Apr 08 '19 at 07:54
  • well, given this error, I'm fairly certain it lacks permissions to do the push, because why would it prompt username\password otherwize – 4c74356b41 Apr 08 '19 at 08:12
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    @Muthurathinam try my answer below, I also got this error in merge and I solved it. – Shayki Abramczyk Apr 08 '19 at 09:06
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    Hi @Muthurathinam, I hope you don't mind me asking : do you really need to script the merge and push? This sort of thing can normally be done much more easily within azure devops by using a Pull Request. – Vince Bowdren Apr 16 '19 at 10:33

4 Answers4

25

There is a built-in "service account" which is actually a PAT called Project Collection Build Service, not to be confused with Project Collection Build Service Accounts group.

From: https://marcstan.net/blog/2018/08/31/Mirror-github-gitlab-and-VSTS-repositories/

Trivia: In case you didn't know "$env:SYSTEM_ACCESSTOKEN" is a PAT (Personal/Private Access Token) that is auto generated by the build server (but disabled by default) and allows to authenticate against VSTS from inside your builds and releases. To enable it, you have select the "agent job" inside your build or release definition and check the "Allow scripts to access the OAuth token" checkbox under "Additional options".

There are two steps to this:

Step 1

To get rid of the fatal: could not read username for... error, we need to allow scripts to access the OAuth token. If you're using the newest YAML-based Azure Pipeline, you'll be hunting high and low for "Allow scripts to access the OAuth token" option in the UI. The Microsoft answer is here. In your YAML file (azure-pipelines.yml), add:

steps:
- checkout: self
  persistCredentials: true

Step 2

After resolving the OP's error, I couldn't commit, receiving the error:

remote: 001f# service=git-receive-pack
remote: 0000000000aaTF401027: You need the Git 'GenericContribute' permission to perform this action. Details: identity 'Build\c21ba3ac-5ad4-de50-bc1a-12ee21de21f0', scope 'repository'.
remote: TF401027: You need the Git 'GenericContribute' permission to perform this action. Details: identity 'Build\c21ba3ac-5ad4-de50-bc1a-12ee21de21f0', scope 'repository'.
fatal: unable to access 'https://[username].visualstudio.com/[repo]/_git/[repo]/': The requested URL returned error: 403

We also have to give it permissions. From the same page as above. Add the user Project Collection Build Service to your repo(s).

enter image description here

Note: The user (1) and not the group (2).

Grant:

Contribute: Allow
Create Branch: Allow
Create Tag: Allow (Inherited)
Read: Allow (Inherited)

HTH

Community
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woter324
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    Building on this answer, if you still use the old URL format, this same page can be found here: https://[organization].visualstudio.com/DefaultCollection/[project]/_settings/repositories?repoGroup=true&_a=security – Doug Aug 26 '19 at 20:46
  • Frustratingly, I also hit the "You need the Git 'GenericContribute' permission" error during cake build script - even though the only thing I was pushing was a tag (eg. git push origin refs/tags/1.0.0.0) and the Create Tag permission was set to Allow! I would have preferred to not give contribute permission but appears this was still necessary. – killercowuk Jan 13 '20 at 09:33
  • This is very useful answer. – aDisplayName Aug 25 '20 at 08:48
17

Not the exact same situation you have but this was the only post that came close to my similar situation so I thought it's worth adding my solution here. I had this error in a hosted Ubuntu Azure Pipeline, running a shell command task to checkout, edit and push to git.

I got the error when attempting to push with command: 

git push

I fixed it by changing the command to:

git -c http.extraheader="AUTHORIZATION: bearer $(System.AccessToken)" push

$(System.AccessToken) is a predefined variable in the Azure Pipelines: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/build/variables?view=azure-devops&viewFallbackFrom=vsts&tabs=yaml

Darren Rogers
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    Another key item to go along with the command using `System.AccessToken`, you need to enable `Allow scripts to access the OAuth token` in the Job's Additional Options section (which is mentioned in the link you included). – Jordan Mar 25 '20 at 15:27
1

I don't why but when you try push after merge git want the username & password.

Azure DevOps by default disable the prompt to enter the credentials and you got the error.

You can enable the prompt by set the environment variable GIT_TERMINAL_PROMPT to 1 but during the build you can't enter the values and the build will hang.

To fix the error, just add the username & password or the Personal Access Token (PAT) in the git push command:

git push https://username:password(or PAT)@github.com/username/reponame.git

The https://... replace the origin.

Shayki Abramczyk
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  • using personal access token instead of username and password worked. – Muthurathinam Apr 08 '19 at 09:11
  • Instead of pasting the password into command line, you can use system variable for that. See [the answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/55583374/3425553) by Darren Rogers below. – Igor Mar 10 '20 at 15:14
0

For private projects the azure devops build VM doesn't have permission to clone your submodules. In order to give it permission to clone you can either add your username and password or add a personal access token(PAT) to the url in the gitmodules file in your repo on Azure devops. You need to change the url to https://username:password@dev.azure.com/organization/project/_git/repo or https://PAT@dev.azure.com/organization/project/_git/repo

I recommend using a PAT. You can create a PAT in Azure DevOps just look up how to do it.

William
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