~/.config/gh/hosts.yml stopped working to authenticate

[olgabot]

Describe the bug

Hello, I had configured gh cli on my laptop and then wanted to use it on a headless system. I copied the configuration over with scp:

(base)
 Sat  4 Jul - 13:12  ~ 
  scp -r ~/.config/gh/config.yml olga@ndnd.czbiohub.org:~

And this worked for a bit, but with the 0.10.1 release, I can no longer create PRs in the command line due to lack of authentication.

Version info:

(base)
 Sat  4 Jul - 13:09  ~/code/tabula-microcebus--olgabot/update-muscle-annotations/00_data_ingest/01_global_object   olgabot/update-muscle-annotations 3● 
 olga@ndnd  gh --version
gh version 0.10.1 (2020-06-24)
https://github.com/cli/cli/releases/tag/v0.10.1

Steps to reproduce the behavior

1. Type gh or create
2. Press Enter to create a new authentication
3. See error

Expected vs actual behavior

I expected to be able to create a PR from the command line using the configuration in ~/.config/gh/config.yml

Logs

Details

(base)
 ✘  Sat  4 Jul - 13:08  ~/code/tabula-microcebus--olgabot/update-muscle-annotations/00_data_ingest/01_global_object   olgabot/update-muscle-annotations 3● 
 olga@ndnd  gh pr create
Notice: additional authorization required
Press Enter to open github.com in your browser...
/usr/bin/xdg-open: 851: /usr/bin/xdg-open: www-browser: not found
/usr/bin/xdg-open: 851: /usr/bin/xdg-open: links2: not found
/usr/bin/xdg-open: 851: /usr/bin/xdg-open: elinks: not found
/usr/bin/xdg-open: 851: /usr/bin/xdg-open: links: not found
/usr/bin/xdg-open: 851: /usr/bin/xdg-open: lynx: not found
/usr/bin/xdg-open: 851: /usr/bin/xdg-open: w3m: not found
xdg-open: no method available for opening 'https://github.com/login/oauth/authorize?client_id=178c6fc778ccc68e1d6a&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2F127.0.0.1%3A45829%2Fcallback&scope=repo+read%3Aorg+gist&state=2096feba2f8839190b33'
error opening web browser: exit status 3
Please open the following URL manually:
https://github.com/login/oauth/authorize?client_id=178c6fc778ccc68e1d6a&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2F127.0.0.1%3A45829%2Fcallback&scope=repo+read%3Aorg+gist&state=2096feba2f8839190b33
If you are on a server or other headless system, use this workaround instead:
  1. Complete authentication on a GUI system;
  2. Copy the contents of `~/.config/gh/hosts.yml` to this system.
^C
(base)
 ✘  Sat  4 Jul - 13:09  ~/code/tabula-microcebus--olgabot/update-muscle-annotations/00_data_ingest/01_global_object   olgabot/update-muscle-annotations 3● 
 olga@ndnd  cat ~/.config/gh/hosts.yml
github.com:
    user: olgabot
    oauth_token: 123abc

[mislav]

@olgabot I'm sorry for the trouble! We extracted authentication info into a separate config file: ~/.config/gh/hosts.yml #1077. To authenticate on a headless system, right now you need to copy both configuration files (when #1304 ships, it will be just hosts.yml that is needed).

As an alternative to configuration files, you can also set GITHUB_TOKEN environment variable with an authentication token.

[olgabot]

Oh okay, thanks! Copying the whole ~/.config/gh folder did the trick:

(base)
 Mon  6 Jul - 08:55  ~/code/xspecies--olgabot/within-species-de   olgabot/preprocess-normalize ✔ 2☀ 
  scp -r ~/.config/gh olga@ndnd.czbiohub.org:~/.config/gh
state.yml                                                                                                 100%  150     5.5KB/s   00:00
config.yml.bak                                                                                            100%   88     4.4KB/s   00:00
config.yml                                                                                                100%  107     5.6KB/s   00:00

[olgabot]

Hi, sorry to open this again. It's still not working for me because my local version, while the latest, doesn't have a hosts.yml file. Is there a way to "convert" the config.yml file to a working hosts.yml file? I think I copied a hosts.yml file from some other system and that also didn't work.

Locally

gh version

(sencha-master)
 ✘  Tue  4 Aug - 17:45  ~/code/sencha   origin ☊ pranathi-translate ✔ 2☀ 
  gh version
gh version 0.11.1 (2020-07-28)
https://github.com/cli/cli/releases/tag/v0.11.1

gh config

(sencha-master)
 ✘  Tue  4 Aug - 17:50  ~/code/sencha   origin ☊ pranathi-translate ✔ 2☀ 
  ll ~/.config/gh
Permissions Size User    Date Modified Name
.rw-------   107 olgabot  9 Jun 11:42  config.yml
.rw-------    88 olgabot  6 Dec  2019  config.yml.bak
.rw-------   150 olgabot  4 Aug 13:28  state.yml

Remote

gh version

(tabula-microcebus-v2)
 ✘  Tue  4 Aug - 17:51  ~/code/tabula-sapiens--olgabot   olgabot/splicing-initial ✔ 
 olga@ndnd  gh version
gh version 0.11.1 (2020-07-28)
https://github.com/cli/cli/releases/tag/v0.11.1

config

(base)
 Tue  4 Aug - 17:53  ~/downloads 
 olga@ndnd  ll ~/.config/gh
Permissions Size User Group Date Modified Name
.rw-------   304 olga czb   27 Jun 13:41  config.yml
.rw-------    88 olga czb    9 Dec  2019  config.yml.bak
.rw-------   153 olga czb    4 Aug 17:40  state.yml

[mislav]

@olgabot Does config.yml on affected machines still contain authentication info under a hosts: section?

If so, running a gh command should have auto-migrated that section into a hosts.yml file. It's possible that removing the previous .bak file might unblock that migration.

If config.yml does not contain hosts:, then copying over a hosts.yml from a machine that has already authenticated should do the trick. Please paste us specific error messages if both approaches do not work!

[olgabot]

Hmm there's no hosts: section in either, just a github.com: section. Is that similar?

(base)
 Thu  6 Aug - 07:54  ~ 
 olga@ndnd  cat ~/.config/gh/config.yml
# What protocol to use when performing git operations. Supported values: ssh, https
git_protocol: https
# What editor gh should run when creating issues, pull requests, etc. If blank, will refer to environment.
editor:
# Aliases allow you to create nicknames for gh commands
aliases:
    co: pr checkout
(base)
 Thu  6 Aug - 07:55  ~ 
 olga@ndnd  cat ~/.config/gh/config.yml.bak
github.com:
  - user: olgabot
    oauth_token: REDACTED

[mislav]

@olgabot Hmm the config.yml seems to have been migrated over (split up) to hosts.yml on another machine properly, but then when you copied it, you omitted hosts.yml. It's best to copy that as well.

Sorry for the trouble! We are working on improving the auth experience for the next release 🙇