The user on a Windows Workbench workstation cannot connect to the agent service. The Workbench error message is “Unable to authenticate user for agent …”
The corresponding messages in the Agent log file (found in the $CA_SCM_HOME/log folder) are
<date> | <time> | Connection established. Connection count: 1.
<date> | <time> | LVL1: in ConnectionMsgThreadMain
<date> | <time> | LVL1: CPtHAgntC::LogIn failed. szSenderURL is </pt_HClient://<client host and pid>
<date> | <time> | LVL1:cbLogIn | Usr<userid> InitDir<> |-165
<date> | <time> | LVL1: ConnectionMsgThreadMain message is FCloseCon_MT
<date> | <time> | Process /pt_HClient://<client host and pid> has closed the connection. Connection count: 0.
Harvest Software Change Manager v12.5 and later
Workbench on a Windows operating system, Agent on a Linux/Unix operating system
In the situation where this problem was reported, it was found that the Unix server hosting the SCM Agent had implemented an extra authentication step using an application called pingID. When logging into that server with putty, the user would provide his userid and password. The system would then send an authentication code to the user’s cell phone which he must type in to gain access to the system.
The SCM agent in multi-user mode was designed to authenticate users in the traditional way using operating system routines to authenticate with just userid and password. It is not designed to request and provide an additional pingID session code.
The options to explore to mitigate this type of issue are:
This article explains about authentication modes: Agent Authentication Modes Explained