BUG REPORT: Native Git Plugin should not throw NPE when SSH_ASKPASS var is not set

Asa Riley

I currently have the starter license so I am not allowed to submit this to support and I am not allowed to post this issue to the Bamboo JIRA project either so I am posting it here. 

 

As we know, the default JGit is buggy, so it is better to use a native git install by adding an appropriate capability. However, if you enable a native git capability where your system has the following conditions, you will get an NPE:

1. The `SSH_ASKPASS` environment variable is not set
2. `/usr/echo` and `/usr/bin/echo` do not exist

It is not a safe assumption that if you are not in a windows environment that `/usr/echo` or `/usr/bin/echo` exists. For example I am using a nixos install, and `echo` in my environment exists at `/run/current-system/sw/bin/echo`. 

 

My workaround is to set `SSH_ASKPASS` to `/run/current-system/sw/bin/echo`.

Ellie Z

Hi @Asa Riley,

Thanks for reaching out to us!

When Bamboo uses native Git, it simply calls the git executable that you have defined. If `SSH_ASKPASS` is not set, Git should try to send a prompt to the terminal to ask for password input, which appears to be where "echo" comes in.

Can you please paste the NullPointerException stack trace that you receive so we can review it further? This will help us see if we can resolve it here, or if we should file a bug report in the JIRA project.

Without that, I can only give a few suggestions here:

Since, by default, on most linux distributions, `/bin` and `/usr/bin` are already in the PATH, one thing to check could be whether `/run/current-system/sw/bin` is included in the PATH environment variable for the user that runs Bamboo. This should allow Git (and Bamboo) to call it.

Alternatively, you could set `core.askpass` in your git config as follows:

git config --global core.askpass /run/current-system/sw/bin/echo

 Thank you!

Elias | Bamboo Support