Rstudio git issue "error: unable to read askpass response from 'rpostback-askpass'"

[kristi-sara]

Askpass bug or issue. Despite setting remotes and configuring correctly, not allowing access. PATS were created as well.

[ilessing]

error looks like:

error: unable to read askpass response from 'rpostback-askpass'
fatal: could not read Username for 'https://github.com': Device not configured

Problem occurs when one tries to authenticate with Github in RStudio. Typically this is happens when one attempts a git push operation.

When one looks around for a fix to this issue there are many that boil down to "Use SSH" instead of HTTPS as a remote URL. That is fine for many cases but for our workshop this is not good as generating SSH keys and putting the public key on Github has proven quite difficult in a workshop setting. For our workshop we would much prefer to use HTTPS and Personal Access Tokes PAT for authentication rather than struggle with SSH.

• reference: issue 151

This is not a new issue with RStudio see: rstudio: error when pushing to github · Issue #104 · OHI-Science/ohicore

What is needed:

• reliable way to reproduce the issue.
• determine if the issue is confined to MacOS or does it occur on Windows too.

Consult:

1. askpass package documentation: CRAN - Package askpass
2. Github issues in the repo: https://github.com/r-lib/askpass
3. Or this github repo? https://github.com/cran/askpass

[kristi-sara]

There was a learner who could not SSH because they didnt have admin rights on a department device. There's those issues too and I think this is the most we can do in that situation.

…

On Mon, Nov 28, 2022 at 2:23 PM Ian Lessing ***@***.***> wrote: error looks like: error: unable to read askpass response from 'rpostback-askpass' fatal: could not read Username for 'https://github.com': Device not configured When one looks around for a fix to this issue there are many that boil down to *Use SSH* instead of HTTPS as a remote URL. That is fine for many cases but for our workshop this is not good as generating SSH keys and putting the public key on Github has proven quite difficult in a workshop setting. For our workshop we would much prefer to use HTTPS and Personal Access Tokes PAT for authentication rather than struggle with SSH. - referene: issue 151 <carpentries-incubator#151> This is not a new issue with RStudio see: rstudio: error when pushing to github · Issue #104 · OHI-Science/ohicore <OHI-Science/ohicore#104> What is needed: - reliable way to reproduce the issue. - determine if the issue is confined to MacOS or does it occur on Windows too. - — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#43 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ALUC4Z6WIPWS5I3NFIJ3DIDWKUWG5ANCNFSM6AAAAAAR45ZTXE> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: <UCSBCarpentry/Reproducible-Publications-with-RStudio-Quarto/issues/43/1329834226 @github.com>

-- Kristi Liu Collaboratory Services Analyst Library Office: (805) 893-7046 Email: ***@***.*** [image: UC Santa Barbara]

[ilessing]

discussed today with workshop creation team:

concluded:

• we should add a note to the workshop directing learners who encounter this issue to work around it with:
  1. use command line git push from terminal outside of RStudio
  2. use SSH instead of PAT to authenticate with Github. May need to create SSH keypair and add their public key to their github account.
• the issue is an RStudio issue and so is not our responsibility to fix it.

[ilessing]

Paul of Monash mentioned using Git Credential Manager

• https://github.blog/2022-04-07-git-credential-manager-authentication-for-everyone/

Would use of this tool help our credential problems?
Would it be too onerous to setup during a workshop?

[ilessing]

in meeting today discussed that Github's change to require 2FA may have impact on this workshop. Need to look into this further.

• Raising the bar for software security: GitHub 2FA begins March 13 | The GitHub Blog

[ilessing]

started working on this with c42d4ef in gh2facompat branch

[ilessing]

https://ohi-science.org/manual/#rpostback-askpass-error

says to try:
open the shell in RStudio and enter:

git push -u origin master

We need to try this on a system that is experiencing the problem and see if it helps. Does anyone have a system that is mis-behaving in this way?

[ilessing]

when one creates a PAT (personal access token) in github it shows this note:

Personal access tokens (classic) function like ordinary OAuth access tokens. They can be used instead of a password for Git over HTTPS, or can be used to authenticate to the API over Basic Authentication.

[ilessing]

resource: - Happy Git and GitHub for the useR written by Jenny Bryan

[rcurty]

We are using the usethis package. We hope this prevents this issue to happen.