Plastic Rest API failing to start

[FuzzkingCool]

Hiya,

I'm pretty sure this is more of a general networking issue, but I am hoping to get any tips on how to troubleshoot this issue.

The problem is that I am unable to start the plasticapi.exe rest api on our server, running Windows Server 2012 R2. It is a most basic installation.

I get the following message: 

"Unable to start the REST API listener. Please make sure that you have HTTP permissions for the current port and user."

• I am running this in a command prompt with elevated privileges
• The server is already accessible in our network using the client
• The server control panel is accessible in the browser using port 7178
• The hosts file has 127.0.0.1 line un-commented
• Ran the command: netsh http add urlacl url=http://+:9090/ user=myusername
• Windows Firewall is disabled.

Not sure what other steps could be taken to troubleshoot. Event logs in windows show nothing out of the ordinary.

What could we be missing?

Thanks in advance!

 

 

 

[manu]

Hello @karmakat,

you mentioned you granted the netsh for your user, is that user the same one running the API? it might be different and you'll need to repeat it for the one running the api process.

How are you starting the api process? Can you give us the used command?

You can create a "plasticapi.log.conf" file where the "plasticapi.exe" file is located with the following content:

<log4net>

    <appender name="DebugAppender" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender">
        <file value="plasticapi.log.txt" />
        <appendToFile value="true" />
        <rollingStyle value="Date" />
        <datePattern value=".yyyyMMdd" />
        <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
            <conversionPattern value="%date %property{ThreadId} %property{TransactionID} %property{UserId} %property{ClientMachine} %-5level %logger - %message%newline" />
        </layout>
    </appender>

    <root>
        <level value="DEBUG" />
        <appender-ref ref="DebugAppender" />
    </root>
</log4net>

in order to activate the log. You can change the "<file value="plasticapi.log.txt" />" line for output path customizations, "<file value="c:\tmp\plasticapi.log.txt" />" for exaple.

The log will hopefully give us more details.

[FuzzkingCool]

Hi @manu,

I am trying to run the plasticapi from the same computer the server is running.  There really shouldn't be any issues with permissions especially considering the server and the control panel is working within our domain already and can be accessed from other systems in the domain.

The netsh commands I have tried:

netsh http add urlacl url=http://X.X.X.X:9090/ user=Everyone

netsh http add urlacl url=http://+:9090/ user=Everyone

netsh http add urlacl url=http://X.X.X.X:9090/ user=specificUserExample

Another thing is that you seem to be only able to run this once for a URL or you will get an error like so:

Url reservation add failed, Error: 183
Cannot create a file when that file already exists.

I have tried as you suggested to create the "plasticapi.log.conf" file where the "plasticapi.exe" file is located. However the destination log  file does not seem to get any data. I have tried several configs for the the file itself. Permissions seem fine on the log file.

My command for the running the api process is simply to run the plasticapi.exe from the command window.

I have also tried with just about every combination of flags and ports but always get the same result:

Unable to start the REST API listener. Please make sure that you have HTTP permissions for the current port and user.

I am totally stumped here as to why this is not working.

• The user is an administrator.
• The cmd.exe is run as administrator.
• Windows Firewall is off.
• I have tried disabling antivirus.

Without any log information, we have no ability to troubleshoot this issue..... only this Unable to start the REST API listener message.

Any help at all would be much appreciated since this is a complete blocker for our pipeline development.

 

 

 

[calbzam]

Hi,

Regarding the "plasticapi.log.conf" needs to be created in the "client" folder and we need to edit the output path to a location with write permissions:

eg:

...

<appender name="FileAppender" type="log4net.Appender.FileAppender">
        <file value="c:\Users\carlos\Desktop\plasticapi.log.txt" />
        <appendToFile value="true" />

...

Could you check if it works?

Regards,

Carlos.

[FuzzkingCool]

Hi @calbzam,

I have tried as you suggested, putting the log file on the desktop, and I also tried the appender type you have here which is different from what @manu suggested. 

And, the "plasticapi.log.conf" has been in the client folder throughout my testing. Unfortunately I am still not getting any logs when I run "plasticapi" from an elevated command prompt.

 

[calbzam]

Hello, we have run the following command and it worked:

netsh http add urlacl url=http://+:9090/ user=ozymandias\miguel

Is it possible you have to enter "DOMAIN\user"?

My guess is the problem is network permissions related.

Regards,

Carlos.