Sidekick Error on Sitecore and/or PowerShell

Question

Hope someone could help me with the following issue on Sidekick Migration Tool.

I'll explain exactly the steps I did to set-up and configure Sidekick on two Sitecore instances, both on the same machine:

1. Created two Sitecore instances using SIM 1.5, "dev" and "live"
2. Changed the target framwork to 4.5.2 to meet Sidekick 1.4.2 dependancies
3. Installed nuget package SitecoreSidekickContentMigrator 1.4.2 on both instances
4. Edited the config files and generated the secret key: BByk6bUzKls4wybcZenCwTbLIGK9go7wG 5.Logged in in "dev" to sync the content from "live" and opened the Sidekick module

All good so far, but when I'm selecting my server to pull the content from, I'm getting the following error: "Make sure the shared secrets match" I said, ok. Let's try doing the sync using PowerShell. Installed it on "dev" and configured it as required. I'm running the following PS script:

Import-Module -Name SitecoreSidekick -Force -Verbose $params = @{ LocalUrl = "http://sc820/" RemoteUrl = "http://sc821/" SharedSecret = "BByk6bUzKls4wybcZenCwTbLIGK9go7wG" EventDisabler = $true BulkUpdate = $true PullParent = $true } Copy-SKContent @params -RootId '{0DE95AE4-41AB-4D01-9EB0-67441B7C2450}' -Children -Overwrite -RemoveLocalNotInRemote Copy-SKContent @params -RootId '{0DE95AE4-41AB-4D01-9EB0-67441B7C2450}' -Children -Overwrite Copy-SKContent @params -RootId '{0DE95AE4-41AB-4D01-9EB0-67441B7C2450}' -Children Copy-SKContent @params -RootId '{0DE95AE4-41AB-4D01-9EB0-67441B7C2450}' -Overwrite

Unfortunatelly I'm getting forbidden:

Exception calling "GetResponse" with "0" argument(s): "The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden.

I've used Fiddler to investigate the requests but nothing useful, just a failed request with no response.

There are some question I would like to ask:

• Can I use Sidekick on the same machine for two or more instances? Or the remote server should be in fact on a different server.
• Would it be possible that the change of solution target framework to cause this issue?

I would be really thankful if someone can advice or help me on the error as I've tried a hunderd of things but nothing helped.

Thank you!

Answer 1

To answer your questions: There is no requirement that the Sitecore environments be on different servers, you could have any amount of Sitecore instances available for content consumption.

Changing the target frame shouldn't cause the issues that you are seeing.

The issues are definately centered around MicroChap. Here are the basics with how Content Migrator is using MicroChap:

1. A nonce is generated (basically just a random guid)
2. Using your shared key, all the parameters, the destination URL, and the generated nonce a security key is generated
3. The request is made to the target server with the nonce and generated security key in http headers
4. The target server uses the same method as the requesting server to generate the security key (shared secret, parameters, and nonce)
5. If they match, it's an authenticated request, if not it's forbidden

So there are a few reasons you could see a forbidden error:

1. The shared secrets don't match
2. An unexpected parameter exists in the request, this can happen with some proxy servers or other network tools. Content migrator takes then entire input stream on the request for parameters.
3. The Url requested is the Url arrived at
4. The nonce header is missing or not a match -> request.Headers["X-MC-Nonce"]
5. The mac header is missing or not a match (security key) -> request.Headers["X-MC-MAC"]

Something you could try right away is to try removing the trailing slashes on your urls. This could be falsely triggering the url mismatch rule (which I would consider a bug in Content Migrator).