Question

What went wrong

I have a ubuntu 12.10 server.

I installed Jenkins and Nginx in the same server.

The /var/virtual where Nginx is supposed to server files from has a permission settings of www-data:www-data

The user jenkins is running Jenkins the software.

This is my target written in phing build.xml

<target name="gitclone">
        <echo msg="gitclone ${environment.branch} branch code to ${environment} environment" />

        <exec command="ssh -A ${host-used} 'git clone -b ${repository-uri} ${environment.branch} ${environment.sitedir}${build.time}'"
         outputProperty="result" escape="false"/>
        <echo msg="${result}" />

        <echo msg="update all the submodules after gitclone" />
        <exec dir="${environment.sitedir}${build.time}" command="ssh -A ${host-used} 'git submodule update --init --recursive'" outputProperty="result" escape="false" />
        <echo msg="${result}" />

    </target>

This is my console output from jenkins:

[echo] gitclone master branch code to production environment
[echo] Permission denied, please try again.
Permission denied, please try again.
Permission denied (publickey,password).
[echo] update all the submodules after gitclone
Execution of target "gitclone" failed for the following reason: /var/lib/jenkins/jobs/abc-master/workspace/build.xml:116:48: '/var/virtual/abc.com/2013_01_11_07_45_35' is not a valid directory

What I tried

I googled around and then I saw this github article on ssh agent forwarding.

This is what I tried.

I ssh into my server as jenkins.

Then I typed

ssh -T [e-mail]

I was prompted for [e-mail] password which I then gave. Note that xxx.xx.xxx.xx from now onwards refer to the ip address of the same server.

I successfully logged in as www-data, so I exited [e-mail]. Now back in server as jenkins user.

Now I try

echo "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK"

I got nothing.

I went inside /var/lib/jenkins/.ssh/config and typed the following:

Host xxx.xx.xxx.xx
ForwardAgent yes
IdentityFile /var/lib/jenkins/.ssh/id_rsa
StrictHostkeyChecking no

Build Jenkins job again. Fail.

Then I thought maybe I need to set the authorized_keys inside www-data ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file so that whenever we go from [e-mail] to [e-mail], I won’t get prompted for password.

So as jenkins, I typed

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh [e-mail] 'cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys'

Then I typed

ssh -T [e-mail]

I was prompted for [e-mail] password which I then gave.

I successfully logged in as www-data without getting prompted for password this time, so I exited [e-mail]. Now back in server as jenkins user.

Build Jenkins job again. Fail.

As jenkins, I typed

echo "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK"

Nothing was seen.

Tried

ssh-add -L

Got

Could not open a connection to your authentication agent.

Edited /etc/ssh/sshd_config and added

AllowAgentForwarding yes

Checked /etc/ssh/ssh_config. No ForwardAgent no setting.

Build Jenkins job again. Fail.

Answer 1

For one I noticed that your git clone command may be written wrongly.

Check:

    <exec command="ssh -A ${host-used} 'git clone -b ${environment.branch} ${repository-uri} ${environment.sitedir}${build.time}'"

I swapped position of ${environment.branch} and ${repository-uri}.

Reference: git-clone(1) Manual Page