nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Modifying Windows registry in a Bamboo task?

Paul Smith

I have a Bamboo remote agent running on a Windows 10 server. One of the plans I want to create is for testing an ODBC driver. In order to install the driver so it can be tested I need to modify the Windows registry HKLM (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE) section to add information about the driver DLL.

When I do this (from a cmd.exe inline Script task) it succeeds with no errors and if I run reg query in my Bamboo task script, both before and after I run the client, I can see all the settings just as I want them. However starting the ODBC client fails saying no driver is registered.

Then when I log into the Windows system and look at the registry, none of my HKLM settings exist (I purposefully didn't remove them again). Also, if I'm logged into the Windows system and I run the exact same test from a cmd.exe it works great with no errors: it finds the driver and the tests succeed. And the HKLM settings still exist after the test concludes of course.

Is there some magical thing that the Bamboo agent does that fakes out the Windows registry so that reg add / reg query / etc. commands pretend to succeed while not actually modifying the registry at all? That's the only way I can explain the behavior I'm seeing. But, I can't seem to find any info about anything like this in the documentation.

Accepted answers

Paul Smith

A co-worker of mine found the answer (thanks Eusebio!)

The problem was that on these systems the Bamboo agent was started using a 32bit version of the Java JRE. This caused 32bit mode version of regedit to be run. When this happens and you update an entry in the HKLM\Software section of the registry, it will "magically" update that entry in the HKLM\Software\WOW6432Node section instead, behind your back. So as long as you're running the 32bit versions of software it looks like everything is set right. But when you run 64bit software like drivers etc. and it looks in the real HKLM\Software section, those changes are not found.

Once we ensured that the Bamboo agents were started with a 64bit Java JRE everything started working as expected.

All comments

Eduardo Alvarenga

Hello @Paul Smith

Can you confirm if the user that is running the Bambo remote agent has enough privileges to edit the registry? Can you share the command/script you are running through cmd.exe?

Regards,

Eduardo Alvarenga
Atlassian Support APAC

Paul Smith

Well, the user account running the agent definitely can "run as administrator" (this is a dedicated bamboo agent host and there's only one user account on it, and I log in as that account and I can "run as administrator").

I don't know if the bamboo agent itself is running with elevated privileges or not. I thought it was, since when I run commands that modify the registry I get no errors and a query run in the task shows it's there. But since other parts of the system can't see it and it doesn't appear visible outside the task script I'm no longer sure.

Unfortunately I'm not very knowledgeable about Windows: I really only do UNIX systems like Linux and MacOS.

The commands I'm running are things like:

reg add "HKLM\Software\ODBC\ODBCINST.INI\ODBC Drivers" /v "Test ODBC Driver" /t REG_SZ /d "Installed" /f
The operation completed successfully.

Then in the task script right after the above command I can run:

reg query "HKLM\Software\ODBC\ODBCINST.INI\ODBC Drivers"

and it prints the driver name I just added.

But then when I RDP to the server and run the same query, it shows nothing. And, my ODBC driver (which is trying to look up this driver name) fails saying no such driver exists.

But, when I run these exact same commands via RDP from a cmd.exe with administrator privileges it works fine and the ODBC driver is found.

Eduardo Alvarenga

Hello @Paul Smith

I'm not sure about your Windows setup, you mentioned you run the commands with "Administrator privileges" but you don't mention your Bamboo user that runs the agent has such privileges. Though it can run the command "as an Administrator", you still will need to enforce the run of reg as an Administrator to make it work. Be careful with escaping the quote characters:

runas /user:Administrator "reg add \"HKLM\Software\ODBC\ODBCINST.INI\ODBC Drivers\" /v \"Test ODBC Driver\" /t REG_SZ /d \"Installed\" /f"

You will also need to enable the "Administrator" user (or equivalent account) and disable UAC to make it work.

Eduardo Alvarenga
Atlassian Support APAC

Paul Smith

Hi @Eduardo Alvarenga I tried to be clear about the environment but I guess I failed. There is only one account on the system. That account is allowed to start programs with administrator privileges. That account runs the bamboo agent. I don't know if the bamboo agent process (java) was started with administrator privileges or not. I'm sorry but I'm not a Windows person so I don't know how to figure out these things.

I tried the runas command you suggested. There are two problems: first, it asks for a password so it can't be used in a script (however I think I read somewhere there's a way to cache the password so maybe that's possible). Second, no matter what password I enter it says "5: Access is denied." This makes me think I don't know the needed password (I tried the account password for example). If I start a cmd.exe terminal "Run as Administrator", I can do that and the reg command works.

It would be good to find a way to make this work but that's not actually the main thing I have a question about.

The main thing I want to know is, why do these registry commands all succeed when I run them from within my Bamboo task, but they don't actually seem to affect the real registry on the system?

That is the part that really confused me: the `reg add` commands work, the `reg query` commands see the changes, but the changes aren't actually there in the registry. Once the task ends, all those changes are gone. And even while the task is running other parts of the system (like the ODBC framework) can't see these changes.

If the commands failed, I would know that privileges were wrong. But they don't fail, so I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was wrong. So I'd like to understand how this happens.

Paul Smith

A co-worker of mine found the answer (thanks Eusebio!)

Once we ensured that the Bamboo agents were started with a 64bit Java JRE everything started working as expected.

Welcome!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

Quick Links

Find more posts tagged with

bamboo

windows

agent