sourcelink and BitBucket Server authentication - always downloads Login page.

[drauch]

Our internal BitBucket Server (v6.x) does require authentication, we use sourcelink to embed the correct links, but it always downloads the Login page as source instead of the actual content. Any ideas what we could do wrong?

Best regards,
D.R.

[tmat]

@chuckries

[drauch]

In the meantime we have found this: #322 but it didn't help. We're using VS 2022 though, not VS 2019.

[drauch]

Ping, is there anything we can do? A workaround perhaps?

[KalleOlaviNiemitalo]

Does the generated SourceLink URL have /rest/api/1.0/ in it? IIRC, you need that in order to make Bitbucket Server request HTTP authentication rather than redirect to an HTML login page. However, I don't know what kind of HTTP response is expected by Visual Studio.

[drauch]

Does the generated SourceLink URL have /rest/api/1.0/ in it? IIRC, you need that in order to make Bitbucket Server request HTTP authentication rather than redirect to an HTML login page. However, I don't know what kind of HTTP response is expected by Visual Studio.

We don't set the SourceLink URL, according to the docs it should automatically find out the correct URL - do we have to set it manually?

[KalleOlaviNiemitalo]

The MSBuild targets in this repository should generate a JSON file with the Source Link information and pass that to the C# compiler. You could check what the file contains.

[drauch]

Do you know the file name or where this file should reside? I couldn't find it.

[KalleOlaviNiemitalo]

Somewhere in the obj directory, I think. If you increase the log verbosity enough, then it should appear in the C# compiler options.

[drauch]

Thanks, I found it in the obj directory. I can confirm that the URL does indeed NOT contain "/rest/api/1.0/".

It looks like this:

https://git.ourinternalserver.com/projects/myproj/repos/myrepo/raw/*?at=hashcodehere

How to adjust this URL so that it contains the correct endpoint?

[KalleOlaviNiemitalo]

<ItemGroup>
    <SourceLinkBitbucketGitHost Include="git.ourinternalserver.com:7999" ContentUrl="https://git.ourinternalserver.com/rest/api/1.0/" />
</ItemGroup>

You might have to change or omit the port number, to match the URI used for cloning the repository. If in doubt, just add a separate item for each.

When I did this last year, I was able to configure the URL in the Source Link information, but I was not able to make the Visual Studio debugger ask for credentials. I was not using VS 2022, though.

[chuckries]

VS Source Link does not fully support authenticated requests to on prem BitBucket servers today. We are working to prioritize this capability.

You can use a tool like fiddler to look at the request being made by Visual Studio to the server. One issue may be that it does not include an authentication header. If this is the case, try turning on the option Tools > Option > Debugging > General > Fall back to Git Credential Manager authentication..."

Once you do this (or if you have already done this), please ensure that the request being sent by VS has a valid Authentication Header. If the request is being sent with a valid Authentication Header and is still failing, it is likely a URL issue. Please let me know what you find.

[drauch]

@KalleOlaviNiemitalo : I've added the information but it still receive only the Login page in VS.

@chuckries : I have "Fall back to Git Credential Manager authentication" enabled. There is still no header sent.

Fiddler shows the following:

1. A GET request to /projects/<ProjectKey>/repos/<Repo>/raw/path/to/file.cs?at=4fba4993b74923b0bb4a5c49f43c4ca6e7f87138 (only headers sent are: User-Agent, Authorization (empty), and Host)
2. The server returns 302
3. A GET request to /login?next=<UrlFrom1>

The response from the login page GET request is displayed in VS 2022.

Please let me know what else I should do or what I am doing wrong.

We've selected "embedded browser" in Options -> Environment -> Accounts and even tried to login first in IE and Edge before performing the action in VS.

Best regards,
D.R.

[KalleOlaviNiemitalo]

@drauch I don't think I can help you there. When I was trying to set up Source Link with Bitbucket Server and Visual Studio 2017, I was never able to make VS send any credentials. First I assumed it was because the HTTP response was a redirection to an HTML login page rather than 401 Unauthorized, which VS could have recognised. I configured Source Link to use the API URL and got the 401 but it still didn't work. Then I thought it was because the URL had http rather than https and VS might not dare to send passwords over an insecure connection. Fixed that too but still no luck. Eventually I gave up. Now it's possible that this was because of some VS2017 restriction that has been removed in VS2019 or VS2022, but I can't test those for you.

[drauch]

OK, thanks for your reply though! Hopefully @chuckries can help me out : )