SEAS Code Repo Troubleshooting and FAQ

When you login to code.seas (https://code.seas.harvard.edu/login), the page will direct you to the CROWD authentication page (https://openid.seas.harvard.edu/openidserver/ ).
CROWD is a single sign-on tool that aggregate user’s credentials in sequence from SEAS, FAS and a local database (for non SEAS or FAS accounts holders).

Once in the CROWD page there are three extremely important notes to read (located above the Login box), and those are :
  1 - if you have ever had a SEAS account you must log into code.seas with this account.
  2 - if you do not have a SEAS account, and this is your first time using your FAS account, your first attempt to login may fail. Please try a second time.
  3 - you can not reset your SEAS or FAS password using this page. Only users with external account can.

We are detailing here some of the issues associated with each of these lines and how to act on them.

I cannot login to code.seas.harvard.edu using my credentials:

The validation order is very important, please make sure you read this carefully.

1. Do you have or had SEAS credentials?

Crowd will initially attempt to validate your credentials against the SEAS authentication system, please make sure you use those as a first attempt.

If you can't remember what those are please send an Email to help@seas.harvard.edu or visit the help desk support team on the first floor of Maxwell Dworkin Building, room 109  (MD 109) to reset your password.

2. Do you have or had FAS credentials?

If crowd can't validate you against the SEAS authentication system, it will try to do it against the FAS one which is now using Harvard Key as passwords.

If you can't remember your FAS password/Harvard Key, please browse for http://key.harvard.edu to reset your "fas password" and try again

You can test if your FAS credentials are working (before login to code.seas): Please try to login to one of the FAS machines using ssh and your Harvard key. You could use for instance nice.fas.harvard.edu :
> ssh YOUR-FAS-USERNAME@nice.fas.harvard.edu

1. If you weren't able to successfully connect to nice, you will not be able to connect to code.seas, please make sure you know what your Harvard Key is and if your username is correct. Contact ithelp@harvard.edu otherwise.
2. If you successfully logged in, then you should be able to connect to code.seas , otherwise please see the next line

3. If you had FAS credentials in the past, but have now SEAS credentials AND your username is the same, you will have to contact us to remediate your account and associated repositories at help@seas.harvard.edu

If you are a student and never used Code.seas and need to for a class:

It is possible that when using for the first time your credentials, you need to login twice with your FAS credentials, please make sure you do so.

I am an external collaborator with no SEAS or FAS credentials

In this case you will need to contact us so that we add you to the local database, please let us know who are you collaborating with.

I get "fatal: no matching remote head" when trying to clone a repository

Most likely the repository you are trying to clone is empty, and the error message is git's friendly way of telling you that. See below (or by clicking "more info" next to the repository's "push url") for info on how to push to it.

How do I point my local Git repository?

Easiest way is to put something like the following in your .git/config file of the repository you wish to push:

[~fadel:remote "origin"]
       url = git@code-dev.int.seas.harvard.edu:project/repository.git
       fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
[~fadel:branch "master"]
       remote = origin
       merge = refs/heads/master

and then git push origin master to push the code.

You can also just run

• git push git@code-dev.int.seas.harvard.edu:tumbline/mainline.git",

or you can setup a remote by doing the following (add --fetch to the add call to get the config from above):

  git remote add origin @code-dev.int.seas.harvard.edu:project/repository.git
  # to push the master branch to the origin remote we added above:
  git push origin master
  # after that you can just do:
  git push

What version of Git is running?

• git version 1.6.1

How did my avatar/mugshot end up on this site? I am not even registered!

We use Gravatar.com for user avatars. If you have not registered, someone else may have pushed commits with you name and/or email in them which we in turn hash and send to to Gravatar.com to find an avatar image. If you want it changed you should either register and upload an avatar of your own, or go to Gravatar.com and change it.

Why do I need to upload my public SSH key?

When you push to a Git repository, your public key is how we authenticate you and check if have the permissions required to do a commit to a given repository

I have Windows. How do I generate the required SSH key?

The recommended way to use Git on Windows is the msysGit version. It comes bundled with minimal Cygwin support. When you finish installing it, you will have a "Git Bash" icon in your desktop. Double click to open it and now you can use known Linux-like commands, such as ssh-keygen -t rsa. Just press 'Return' in every question it asks and you will finally have your pair of keys under ".ssh/". For example, type

# cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Thats is the public key that you are required to copy and paste into your account on SEAS Code Repository.