Jira REST API returning 401 Unauthorized

[Austin Luu]

Hello,

I recently lost the ability to login to the Jira REST API using powershell, constantly getting 401 unauthorized errors. My account has admin privileges and I know I'm using the correct password. Anyone might know what I'm doing wrong?

Invoke-RestMethod -UseBasicParsing -Method Post -Uri "https://15sof1.atlassian.net/rest/auth/1/session" -SessionVariable session -Body (@{username = $username; password = $password} | convertTo-Json -Compress) -ContentType 'application/json'

Invoke-RestMethod : The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized.
At line:1 char:1
+ Invoke-RestMethod -UseBasicParsing -Method Post -Uri "https://15sof1. ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (System.Net.HttpWebRequest:HttpWebRequest) [Invoke-RestMethod], WebExc
eption
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : WebCmdletWebResponseException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.InvokeRestMethodCommand

Thanks!

[Andy Heinzer]

Hi all,

I was working with Austin on a related post and I think we found the solution.

Atlassian Cloud recently deprecated support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 protocols.  This will force all clients to support TLS 1.2 in order to connect. Deprecating TLSv1 and TLSv1.1 for Atlassian Cloud Products has more details.

While the planned effective date in that page was December 1, 2018, you can see in the recent Jira Cloud blog updates in https://confluence.atlassian.com/cloud/blog/2019/07/atlassian-cloud-changes-jul-1-to-jul-8-2019

... after consultation internally and with customers, we have allowed a silent/soft grace period of 6 months to allow customers additional time to update the necessary tools and systems. This grace period has now expired. 

In my search I came across this post:

https://www.codyhosterman.com/2016/06/force-the-invoke-restmethod-powershell-cmdlet-to-use-tls-1-2/

The issue, as I understand it, is that PowerShell by default uses TLS 1.0 for web requests, which will not work in our case. So this needs to be changed. Thankfully, this is an easy change. Just add the following line to your scripts:

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12

Which means that we would need to make sure powershell is using the TLS v1.2 protocol when trying to connect to an Atlassian Cloud address, or else it won't be able to connect.

Cheers,

Andy

[Lucas Rodrigues de Oliveira]

Hi Austin,

try use the basic authentication, some Jira REST API needs this to authenticate. 

https://developer.atlassian.com/server/jira/platform/basic-authentication/ 

If you need, you can construct and send the basic authorization header yourself as follows:

1. Build a string of the form username:password.
2. Encode the string to Base64.
3. Supply an authorization header with format Authorization: Basic {encoded-string}. Make sure to replace {encoded-string} with your encoded string from Step 2.

For example, if your username and password are both fred then the string "fred:fred" encodes to ZnJlZDpmcmVk in Base64. You can then make a request with cURL specifying the authorization header with -H as follows:

 curl -H "Authorization: Basic ZnJlZDpmcmVk" -X GET -H "Content-Type: application/json" http://localhost:8080/rest/api/2/issue/createmeta

[Austin Luu]

I tried that but it didn't work, can you see anything wrong with my code?

$username = 'austin.luu91@gmail.com'
@Password = 'somePassword'
$pair = "${username}:${password}"
$bytes = [System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetBytes($pair)
$base64 = [System.Convert]::ToBase64String($bytes)
$basicAuthValue = "Basic $base64"
$headers = @{ Authorization = $basicAuthValue }
Invoke-RestMethod -UseBasicParsing -Method Post -Uri "https://15sof1.atlassian.net/rest/auth/1/session" -Headers $headers -SessionVariable session -ContentType 'application/json'

Invoke-RestMethod : The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized.
At line:1 char:1
+ Invoke-RestMethod -UseBasicParsing -Method Post -Uri "https://15sof1. ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (System.Net.HttpWebRequest:HttpWebRequest) [Invoke-RestMethod], WebExc
eption
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : WebCmdletWebResponseException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.InvokeRestMethodCommand