IBM Support

Unable to set user account to bfuser: unknown account

Troubleshooting


Problem

This technote details how to investigate and resolve the error, []Agent: [RESULT] [AUTH: unable to set user account to bfuser: unknown account (1)][], in IBM® Rational® Build Forge® with PAM configured for user authentication.

Cause

When trying to test the Build Forge agent, it fails without reporting an error.

Setting the environment variable BF_SERVERTEST_DEBUG=1 will give more insight to the root issue.

  1. An initial server test from the command line shows the following:

    C:\Program Files\BuildForge>bfservertest.exe linux
    ServerTest: 3732: Agent test completed for server 'linux', setting error status to 'Y'.

  2. Set the server test environment variable:

    C:\Program Files\BuildForge>set BF_SERVERTEST_DEBUG=1

  3. Run the server test again and examine the verbose output:

    C:\Program Files\BuildForge>bfservertest.exe linux
    Got server record for [linux]
    Set cleared store for [1184362608generic1]
    Sending agent request...
    Agent: [RESULT] [AUTH: unable to set user account to bfuser: unknown account (1)]
    Agent: [EOR] []
    ServerTest: 8076: Agent test completed for server 'linux', setting error status to 'Y'.
    4167656e74546573745374617274
    4167656e74486f7374416e64506f7274,6d65676174726f6e,64656661756c74
    4167656e7456657273696f6e,372e302e302e303137
    4167656e74506c6174666f726d4e6f74466f756e64
    4167656e7446756e6374696f6e616c546573744661696c
    4167656e7441757468656e7469636174696f6e4572726f72,6b64756572
    4167656e7454657374436f6d706c65746564,34

The above error suggest that the PAM configuration for the agent machine does not have an entry for bfagent.

Resolving The Problem

You must verify if there is an entry for the bfagent in the PAM configuration, and if not, then create one.

  1. On the agent machine change directory (cd) to /etc/pam.d and perform an ls -al to get the following output:




  2. From the above output, the file bfagent is missing. Copy the cups file to bfagent to resolve this issue:

    root@linux pam.d]# cp cups bfagent

  3. The server test works correctly now:

    C:\Program Files\BuildForge>bfservertest.exe linux

    Got server record for [linux]
    Set cleared store for [1184362608generic1]
    Sending agent request...
    Agent: [DATA] [AUTH: set user account to bfuser]
    Agent: [DATA] [EXEC: spawning shell [/bin/bash]]
    Agent: [DATA] [PTY: allocated pseudo-tty /dev/pts/2]
    Agent: [DATA] [300 DATA s 39]
    Agent: [DATA] [EXEC: tmp file [/tmp/bf4ewJ9u] remains.]
    Agent: [DATA] [.]
    Agent: [DATA] [-bash: /root/.bashrc: Permission denied]
    Agent: [DATA] [?[H?[2J]
    Agent: [DATA] [EXEC: tmp file [/tmp/bf4ewJ9u] remains.]
    Agent: [DATA] [PLAT: linux 2.4.21-40.ELsmp #1 SMP Thu Feb 2 22:22:39 EST 2006]
    Agent: [RESULT] [PING: internal loopback test complete]
    Agent: [EOR] []
    ServerTest: 4752: Agent test completed for server 'linux', setting error status to 'N'.4167656e74546573745374617274
    4167656e74486f7374416e64506f7274,6d65676174726f6e,64656661756c74
    4167656e7456657273696f6e,372e302e302e303137
    4167656e7441757468656e7469636174696f6e,6b64756572
    4167656e74506c6174666f726d,206c696e757820322e342e32312d34302e454c736d7020233120534d502054687520
    6656220322032323a32323a33392045535420323030
    4167656e7446756e6374696f6e616c546573744f6b
    4167656e7454657374436f6d706c65746564,34

[{"Product":{"code":"SSB2MV","label":"Rational Build Forge"},"Business Unit":{"code":"BU053","label":"Cloud & Data Platform"},"Component":"Agent: Authentication","Platform":[{"code":"PF016","label":"Linux"},{"code":"PF022","label":"OS X"}],"Version":"3.8;7.0;7.0.1","Edition":"","Line of Business":{"code":"LOB45","label":"Automation"}}]

Document Information

Modified date:
16 June 2018

UID

swg21267059

Page Feedback