"Auth Fail" Git error

Knowledge Drop

Last tested: March 11, 2021

Auth fail means either a) that git repo isn’t open to the network so Looker can't SSH to it at all, no matter the key or b) the key is wrong.

Things to Check

Try resetting the connection/key and, if hosting your own Looker instance, making sure port 22 is open on the instance per outbound port req's doc.

Additionally, if hosting your own Looker instance:
Check the contents of the ~/.ssh/config file in the Looker instance account directory. If the config file contains an "Identityfile" section, this has been found to cause "Auth Fail" errors in git connection testing. Cause is not well understood, but deleting the "Identityfile" section from the ./ssh/config file resolves the auth error for Looker.

(If Looker hosts your instance on Kubernetes, the identity file is likely not the issue!)

This error can also occur when 2FA is set up with the Git provider when using HTTPS to connect. The way around this would be to use your access token instead of a password or use the SSH connection with a deploy key.

This error can also occur if an incorrect IP address is provided in the SSH URL. If you are using an ssh url like so: ssh://git@35.194.0.236:make sure that the IP address is actually correct and actually points to your git repo.

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Version history
Last update:
‎04-05-2021 09:12 AM
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