Failed to load package details

[PhilippSoehnlein]

We just updated to private-bower 1.1, but unfortunately the package details (#109) aren't shown (error message Failed to load package details! appears in web ui).

Clicking a package name in the web ui triggers a GET request to an URL like this: http://private-bower.our-company.intra/packages/angular/details which returns a 404.

Our private-bower instance caches third party git packages, so the config looks like this:

{
    "port": 80,
    "registryFile": "./bowerRepository.json",
    "timeout": 144000,
    "public": {
        "disabled": false,
        "registry": "http://bower.herokuapp.com/packages/",
        "registryFile": "./bowerRepositoryPublic.json",
        "whitelist": [],
        "blacklist": []
    },
    "authentication": {
        "enabled": false,
        "key": "password"
    },
    "repositoryCache": {
        "cachePrivate": false,
        "git": {
            "enabled": true,
            "cacheDirectory": "./gitRepoCache",
            "host": "private-bower.our-company.intra",
            "port": 6789,
            "publicAccessURL" : null,
            "refreshTimeout": 10
        },
        "svn": {
            "enabled": false,
            "cacheDirectory": "./svnRepoCache",
            "host": "localhost",
            "port": 7891,
            "publicAccessURL" : null,
            "refreshTimeout": 10
        }
    },
    "proxySettings" : {
        "enabled": false,
        "host": "proxy",
        "username": "name",
        "password" : "pass",
        "port": 8080,
        "tunnel": false
    },
    "log4js" : {
        "enabled": false,
        "configPath" : "log4js.conf.json"
    }
}

Calling http://our-host.company.intra/packages/angular returns the following JSON document (not sure if this is helpful, but maybe it is):

{
    "name": "angular",
    "url": "git://private-bower.our-company.intra:6789/angular",
    "hits": 17
}

[mmaday]

I'm having the same problem with "Failed to load package details!" showing up on the Web UI over here.

Looking at the logs / console output, I see a lot of these:

[2015-06-30 16:41:33.574] [INFO] console - [bower] 30/6/15 16:41:33 Error during "git clone https://git.corp.***.net/git/eng/labor-services.git /usr/lib/node_modules/private-bower/lib/temp/packageDetails/6js4hrijzx8byb9 --depth=1" in "undefined"

[Hacklone]

Does the private-bower server have access to the https://git.corp.***.net/git/eng/labor-services.git repo? Because it will try to clone it temporarly :)

[brunowego]

+1

[Hacklone]

The private-bower server needs access (ssh, https) to the git repo.
Is it configured?

[PhilippSoehnlein]

I think there are two problems here:

1. Not getting package details for private packages hosted on an internal git server.
2. Not getting package details for public packages which are cached by private-bower itself.

In my case both problems are apparent and I haven't done anything special to allow access from the private-bower server to our internal git server, so I'm not surprised that doesn't work (what should I do to make that work?). But what surprises me is that the package details of cached public packages aren't available for private-bower since it's hosting them itself.

[PhilippSoehnlein]

Supplemental: I also can reproduce the log message @mmaday reports. For our own internal git server there's indeed an access problem which I will investigate further. But for public cached packages it also says

Error during "git clone git://private-bower.our-company.intra:6789/angular /usr/lib/node_modules/private-bower/lib/temp/packageDetails/slfdjlk1bye3ik9 --depth=1" in "undefined"

When I do a manual git clone git://private-bower.our-company.intra:6789/angular on the shell of our server, cloning works.

[mmaday]

@Hacklone is correct in my case. The user running private-bower didn't properly have access to https://git.corp.***.net/git/eng/labor-services.git mentioned in this log:

 [2015-06-30 16:41:33.574] [INFO] console - [bower] 30/6/15 16:41:33 Error during 
"git clone https://git.corp.***.net/git/eng/labor-services.git /usr/lib/node_modules/private-bower/lib/temp/packageDetails/6js4hrijzx8byb9 --depth=1" in "undefined" 

[Hacklone]

Hey,

I cannot really reproduce your error with the mirrored repositories. If I have the correct permissions to clone the git repository, where ever it is, it's working for me.
I'll put a line in the error message explaining that the server needs permission to the repository.

[Hacklone]

I cannot see why it should fail other than the server doesn't have cloning rights to the repo.

[PhilippSoehnlein]

For me, it still doesn't work though I can clone a git repository from our internal git server from the command line of our private-bower server (as root, because private-bower runs as root).
For debugging purposes: Could you put the output of the git clone command into the logfile if there was an error?

[PhilippSoehnlein]

Sorry, for posting again, I'm getting nearer the problem: The user our private-bower server runs isn't root and therefore my git/ssh-config is wrong. I currently think private-bower is correct, but our git/ssh-config is wrong. This can probably be closed, but I may come back to you, when it's resolved.

[PhilippSoehnlein]

Ok, we finally sorted this thing out and I write about the problems here in case someone else will run into this in the future.
To get repository contents from our git-server some valid credentials are needed (which provide access to the repository in question). This auth mechanism uses SSH keys. Since our private-bower instance runs on Ubuntu, we used the manual in the wiki which starts the private-bower service under the www-data user. By default this user doesn't have an SSH-key in Ubuntu (and no home directory either), so the solution was to give this user a home directory and create an SSH key and allow this SSH key some access to our git server.

Another problem emerged then: private-bower checks out the repositories to a temp folder within the private-bower folder (on Ubuntu it's /usr/lib/node_modules/private-bower/lib/temp/), but this folder doesn't exist by default and in our installation (don't know if this is Ubuntu standard) all files in /usr/lib/node_modules/private-bower/lib/ belonged to user nobody and the group users with rights 755.
To make the cloning work we had to execute the following commands:

• sudo mkdir /usr/lib/node_modules/private-bower/lib/temp/
• sudo chmod 755 /usr/lib/node_modules/private-bower/lib/temp/
• sudo chown www-data:www-data /usr/lib/node_modules/private-bower/lib/temp/

It would probably be a good idea to switch to some node module which provides system independent access to a temp folder, to make sure this stuff works independently from the system and user environment private-bower runs on.

[gyozob]

Hello, here I have a similar issue, can somebody tell me how to give private-bower server access to the git repo? I set up private-bower on my local machine (windows), also added ssh key to git repo so I was able to clone/push to that repo... please help cc @Hacklone