Creating a fork

[jalanh11640]

I'm trying to create a script to fork projects from 'software/common' to 'software/projectX/forked' I've ensured that the 'forked' group exists. I have a problem with forking. Here's my code.

prj = gl.projects.get("software/common/clock")
fork = glProject.forks.create({'namespace': "software/projectX/forked" , 'visibility': 'internal'})

Two exceptions occur.
gitlab.exceptions.GitlabHttpError: 404: 404 Not Found
gitlab.exceptions.GitlabCreateError: 404: 404 Not Found

The gitlab instance was created with a the 'software' group token.

What am I doing wrong?

Side question, if I provide a 'software/common' group token when instantiating the gitlab instance, can I fork to 'software/projectX' or is the 'software' group token required?

Thanks,
Jeff

[nejch]

Hey @jalanh11640, could you provide the entire snippet and logs (feel free to redact private information)? Something doesn't quite add up in your code there.

To answer your side question, yes, I believe you'll need access to the parent group - as this is the namespace where you're creating the new project, so you need project creation permissions there.

[jalanh11640]

 FORKED_SOFTWARE_GROUP = "software/common"
# application = "xyz"
# old_gl_group = "software/common"
# new_gl_group = "software/projectX/forked"
# debug = False

def fork_gitlab_projects(application: str, old_gl_group: str, new_gl_group: str, debug: bool):
    try:
        app_project = os.path.dirname(new_gl_group) # app_project = "software/projectX"
        gl = gitlab.Gitlab(url=f"<host>", private_token="<software group token>", ssl_verify=False)

        if FORKED_SOFTWARE_GROUP not in gl.groups.list():
            if debug:
                print(f"{script} Debug: create new group {new_gl_group} with parent {old_gl_group}")
            else:
                try:
                    gl.groups.get(new_gl_group) # Handling the exception is the only way I know to determine if group doesn't exist
                except:
                    try:
                        # group doesn't exist.  Create it and give it users from the application group
                        gl_app_project = gl.groups.get(app_project)
                        new_group = gl.groups.create({'name': new_gl_group, 'path': app_project, 'parent_id': gl_app_project.id, "description": f"Forked projects from {old_gl_group}"})

                    except gitlab.exceptions.GitlabCreateError:
                        # To create a group from the API, admins rights are not sufficient, you must have specific
                        # authorization to create a group, which can be found at http://:yourgitlaburl/admin/users/:username/edit.
                        # Check the checkbox "can create group" You can retrieve if the user can create group or not in the /users
                        # path of the API if the authenticated user have admin rights.
                        sys.exit(f"{script}: Permission denied creating {FORKED_SOFTWARE_GROUP} (see comment in script)")

        for project in configuration.application_project_list(application): # returns "clock"

            prjGroup = configuration.project_group(project) # returns "software/common"
            if prjGroup == old_gl_group:

                if debug:
                    print(f"{script} Debug: create fork in {new_gl_group} for project {project}")
                else:
                    prjStr = os.path.join(configuration.project_group(project), f"{project}.prj") # results in "software/common/clock.prj"
                    glProject = gl.projects.get(prjStr)

                    forkOptions = {'namespace_path': new_gl_group,
                                   'visibility': glProject.visibility,
                                   'mr_default_target_self': True,
                                   'description': f"{glProject.description} (forked from {project})"}
                    fork = glProject.forks.create(forkOptions)
    except gitlab.exceptions.GitlabCreateError as e:
        sys.exit(f"{script}: Encountered error while forking gitlab projects with message: {e.error_message}")

Here's the full traceback:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/gitlab/exceptions.py", line 336, in wrapped_f
    return f(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/gitlab/mixins.py", line 300, in create
    server_data = self.gitlab.http_post(path, post_data=data, files=files, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/gitlab/client.py", line 1028, in http_post
    **kwargs,
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/gitlab/client.py", line 797, in http_request
    response_body=result.content,
gitlab.exceptions.GitlabHttpError: 404: 404 Not Found

The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./prj_app_fork", line 223, in <module>
    main()
  File "./prj_app_fork", line 220, in main
    fork_application(arguments.application, arguments.debug)
  File "./prj_app_fork", line 201, in fork_application
    fork_gitlab_projects(application, common_gl_group, new_gl_group, debug)
  File "./prj_app_fork", line 185, in fork_gitlab_projects
    fork = glProject.forks.create(forkOptions)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/gitlab/v4/objects/projects.py", line 1230, in create
    return cast(ProjectFork, CreateMixin.create(self, data, path=path, **kwargs))
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/gitlab/exceptions.py", line 338, in wrapped_f
    raise error(e.error_message, e.response_code, e.response_body) from e
gitlab.exceptions.GitlabCreateError: 404: 404 Not Found

Additionally, I wrapped HTTPAdapter.send to print the following..
print(f"method: {request.method} - url: {request.url} - body: {str(request.body)}")

Here is that output..
method: POST - url: https://host/api/v4/projects/85039/fork - body: b'{"namespace_path": "software/projectX/forked", "visibility": "private", "mr_default_target_self": true, "description": "<description"}'

One other note that might be relevant. Using the gitlab ui, if I try to fork the project I'm only able to fork it as a private visibility despite the fact that I'm an owner of the project.

[jalanh11640]

Here's another data point. I just ran the following curl command.

$ curl --request POST --data "namespace_path=software/projectX" --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <token>" <host>/api/v4/projects/85039/fork
<html>
<head><title>301 Moved Permanently</title></head>
<body>
<center><h1>301 Moved Permanently</h1></center>
<hr><center>nginx</center>
</body>
</html>

The project was not cloned.

[nejch]

A 301 redirect on POST requests is usually a bad sign and newer versions of python-gitlab will actually raise an error. Before we continue and I go through the code above, what version of python-gitlab are you on? You might want to use the latest, to be sure.

[jalanh11640]

We're using python-gitlab-3.14.0. Our gitlab instance is GitLab Enterprise Edition 15.6.8-ee