Authentication Failed

This error response can have many causes. Here are the most frequently found explanations (in order of likelihood):

Not An Approved Code Downloader

Not all users with accounts to Qualcomm support systems have the ability to CLONE or PULL (download) code from Qualcomm ChipCode repositories. You may only have the ability to VIEW code only.

.netrc/_netrc file

With the new regional servers deployed, in order for authentication to work, users absolutely MUST set their .netrc (Linux) or _netrc (Windows) file to cover “chipmaster2.qti.qualcomm.com” server as the redirector to other regional servers. No additional machines need to be specified. “chipmaster2.qti.qualcomm.com” will redirect you to the closest regional server. Please follow these steps to ensure your .netrc file is updated so authentication will work.

Linux

Create the .netrc in your home directory, replacing USERNAME and PASSWORD with your ChipCode credentials. (copy and paste)

cat > ~/.netrc <<END
machine chipmaster2.qti.qualcomm.com login USERNAME password PASSWORD
END

chmod 600 ~/.netrc

Windows

Create the _netrc in your home directory, replacing USERNAME and PASSWORD with your ChipCode credentials.

c:> notepad %HOME%/_netrc

Copy and paste the following into the file, replacing USERNAME and PASSWORD with your ChipCode credentials.

machine chipmaster2.qti.qualcomm.com login USERNAME password PASSWORD

In addition: When running your git commands in verbose mode (use -v in the git command), an error like what is seen below will be shown, letting you know that the host is not found in your .netrc file:

$ git clone http://somerepo.qualcomm.com/somecustomer_mdm9625-le-1-0-r9.git Cloning into ‘somecustomer_mdm9625-le~~1~~0-r9.git’… * Couldn’t find host somerepo.qualcomm.com in the .netrc file; using defaults*

As an export compliance requirement, all users are required to read and click through a page presented to them upon login at https://chipcode.qti.qualcomm.com. If a user is already using git pull commands from an already-cloned repository and the export click-through has not already been acknowledged, then “Authentication failed” will be reported to the user. This will be a requirement as of January 1, 2014. Please make sure to log in to https://chipcode.qti.qualcomm.com and make sure you do not have this click-through waiting for your acknowledgement. If it is, the “Authentication failed” response will go away once your acknowledgement to the click-through text has been registered on our system.

First Time

Users that log into ChipCode web interface (https://chipcode.qti.qualcomm.com) for the first time need to wait 1 hour for their permissions to set up. After that, then the authentication will pass if the user is already an approved code downloader. Approved code downloaders from the Docs & Downloads site are automatically set up as approved code downloaders in Qualcomm ChipCode as well.

Check Your Cached Credentials File

If you are using a .netrc/_netrc file, make sure your credentials in that file are up-to-date and accurate.

Typographical Errors

Other common mistakes are misspellings of the username or password during interactive prompts by git. Our logs can show misspellings of the username but not the password. Please double-check the password is correctly spelled by testing it at the Web log in of Qualcomm ChipCode at https://chipcode.qti.qualcomm.com/.

Another common mistake is from manually transcribing the repository URL instead of copying it from the repository itself. For example, some customers have seen the number one (1) and thought it was a lower-case L (l). This does not cause a “File Not Found” (HTTP response 404) error, but causes “fatal: Authentication failed” instead, which is misleading. Bottom line, use the copy function and then paste the URL into the terminal instead of typing it out manually.

Fast-Changing IP address

We have had some customers using networks that change their client IP address after a security token is issued to their request. This is not allowed per export compliance and government reporting rules, so authentication failed is a response seen in this scenario. Contact your network IT team and request an IP address that does not change between requests to ChipCode. You can work around this by falling back to the San Diego URL format for your Git repository (see below, Bypassing Regional Server Redirector)

Bypassing Regional Server Redirector

As of 09/19/2013, ChipCode users are automatically redirected to the best regional server per the user’s location. However, we have left the San Diego Git URL available as a manual fallback. Falling back to San Diego is a known workaround to authentication failures due to fast-changing IP addresses (described above) However, Authentication Failed errors can still happen if the user manually types in a mixture of URL formats. For example, the following will always fail because the redirector never issued a token for it:

https://git-ap.chipcode.qti.qualcomm.com/home/git/customername..(rev)..git

Reporting a Problem

If you are sure that you are an approved code downloader and you are still receiving an “Authentication failed” response from git and have waited more than 1 hour after the first time you have ever logged in to the ChipCode web site, then please go to https://support.cdmatech.com and submit an Admin Case with the following details so we can assist you:

  • OS you are using git on (Windows, Linux, etc.)
  • Version of git you are using (git -version)
  • Commands you are sending
  • Responses as provided by git
  • Username attempting the commands