kubectl suddently asking for username - kubernetes

Question

My last deployment pipeline stage on gitlab suddently started asking for username when running "kubectl apply" command to deploy my application in my cluster in GKE (version 1.18.12-gke.1201 and also tested in 1.17). I'm using the imge dtzar/helm-kubectl to run kubectl commands in the pipeline (also tested older versions of this image). This is the log generated when running the stage:
$ kubectl config set-cluster $ITINI_STAG_KUBE_CLUSTER --server="$ITINI_STAG_KUBE_URL" --insecure-skip-tls-verify=true
Cluster "itini-int-cluster" set.
$ kubectl config set-credentials gitlab --token="$ITINI_STAG_KUBE_TOKEN"
User "gitlab" set.
$ kubectl config set-context default --cluster=$ITINI_STAG_KUBE_CLUSTER --user=gitlab
Context "default" created.
$ kubectl config use-context default
Switched to context "default".
$ kubectl apply -f deployment.yml
Please enter Username: error: EOF
I reproduced the same commands locally, and it's working fine.
When running "kubectl version" in the pipeline, this is the output:
Client Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"19", GitVersion:"v1.19.4", GitCommit:"d360454c9bcd1634cf4cc52d1867af5491dc9c5f", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2020-11-11T13:17:17Z", GoVersion:"go1.15.2", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"linux/amd64"}
The connection to the server localhost:8080 was refused - did you specify the right host or port?
When running it locally (with exact same environment variables and tokens configured in the pipeline), this is the output:
Client Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"20", GitVersion:"v1.20.0", GitCommit:"af46c47ce925f4c4ad5cc8d1fca46c7b77d13b38", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2020-12-08T17:59:43Z", GoVersion:"go1.15.5", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"windows/amd64"}
Server Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"18+", GitVersion:"v1.18.12-gke.1201", GitCommit:"160736941f00e54acb1c0a4647166b6f6eb211d9", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2020-12-08T19:38:26Z", GoVersion:"go1.13.15b4", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"linux/amd64"}
What could be causing this problem?

Answer 1

The problem was actually in gitlab. My token variable was marked as "protected" in the gitlab settings, and it was being replaced by an empty string when running the config command. So, the problem was solved by unmarking it as protected.