Git keeps prompting me for a password

Question

I ve been using Git for a while now  but the constant requests for a password are starting to drive me up the wall   I m using Mac nbsp OS nbsp X and GitHub  and I set up Git and my SSH keys as instructed by GitHub s Set Up Git page    I ve also added the github SSH key to my Mac nbsp OS nbsp X keychain  as mentioned on GitHub s SSH key passphrases page  My public key is registered with Git   Nevertheless  every time I try to Git pull  I have to enter my username and password  Is there something other than an SSH key that I need to set up for this

User · Answer

I feel like the answer provided by static_rtti is hacky in some sense. I don't know if this was available earlier, but Git tools now provide credential storage.

Cache Mode

$ git config --global credential.helper cache

Use the “cache” mode to keep credentials in memory for a certain period of time. None of the passwords are ever stored on disk, and they are purged from the cache after 15 minutes.

Store Mode

$ git config --global credential.helper 'store --file ~/.my-credentials'

Use the “store” mode to save the credentials to a plain-text file on disk, and they never expire.

I personally used the store mode. I deleted my repository, cloned it, and then had to enter my credentials once.

Reference: 7.14 Git Tools - Credential Storage

User · Answer

In Windows for Git 1 7 9   run the following command on the command prompt to open the configuration file in a text editor       git config --global --edit   Then in the file  add the following block if not present or edit it accordingly        credential  https   giturl com           username    lt user id gt           helper   wincred   Save and close the file  You will need to provide the credentials only once after the above change

User · Answer

Also look for who is asking you for the passphrase  Is it Git or your SSH agent   In my case  every time I did git pull it was asking me   Enter passphrase for key   work username  ssh id rsa    So I assumed it was Git asking for a passphrase  So I kept hunting for solutions  only to realize later that my SSH agent had shut down  Which can be fixed using eval   ssh-agent  and ssh-add as given here   Also am pasting below a little snippet you can add to your    bashrc file  or the equivalent  to ensure that your SSH agent is started on your login   In any case this was a pretty silly mistake I made  but posting it here  just in case it helps someone save some time from barking up the wrong tree  like I did     Start the ssh-agent function start agent       echo  Initializing new SSH agent            Spawn ssh-agent      usr bin ssh-agent   sed  s  echo  echo    gt    SSH ENV      echo succeeded     chmod 600   SSH ENV          SSH ENV   gt   dev null      usr bin ssh-add    if   -f    SSH ENV      then          SSH ENV   gt   dev null      ps -ef   grep   SSH AGENT PID    grep ssh-agent   gt   dev null              start agent        else     start agent  fi

User · Answer

If you want to stop Git from always asking you for the login credentials of your GitHub repository this can be easily done   Using SSH instead of HTTPS  You can update the origin remote using SSH instead of HTTPS   git remote set-url origin git github com username your-repo git   Configure Git to Store your Password and Username  Here   s how you can make Git store the username and password   git config --global credential helper store   Next  save the username and password for a session   git config --global credential helper cache

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Use the following command to increase the timeout period so that you could retype password for a while  git config --global credential helper  cache --timeout 3600    I used it for Bitbucket and GitHub it works for both  The only thing you need to do is 3600 is in seconds  Increase it to whatever extent you want  I changed it to 259200 which is about 30 days  This way I re-enter my password for every 30 days or so

User · Answer

Configuring credential helper On OS X  now macOS   run this in Terminal  git config --global credential helper osxkeychain  It enables Git to use file Keychain app to store username and password and to retrieve the passphrase to your private SSH key from the keychain  For Windows use  git config --global credential helper wincred  For Linux use  git config --global credential helper cache    If you want to cache the credentials for some time  default 15 minutes   OR git config --global credential helper store    if you want to store the credentials for ever  considered unsafe   Note   The first method will cache the credentials in memory  whereas the second will store them in    git-credentials in plain text format  Check here for more info about Linux method  Check here for more info about all three    Troubleshooting If the Git credential helper is configured correctly macOS saves the passphrase in the keychain  Sometimes the connection between SSH and the passphrases stored in the keychain can break  Run ssh-add -K or ssh-add    ssh id rsa to add the key to keychain again  macOS v10 12  Sierra  changes to ssh For macOS v10 12  Sierra   ssh-add -K needs to be run after every reboot  To avoid this  create    ssh config with this content  Host      AddKeysToAgent yes    UseKeychain yes    IdentityFile    ssh id rsa  From the ssh config man page on 10 12 2   UseKeychain   On macOS  specifies whether the system should search for passphrases in the user s keychain when attempting to use a particular key  When the passphrase is provided by the user  this option also specifies whether the passphrase should be stored into the keychain once it has been verified to be correct  The argument must be  yes  or  no   The default is  no    Apple has added Technote 2449 which explains what happened   Prior to macOS Sierra  ssh would present a dialog asking for your passphrase and would offer the option to store it into the keychain  This UI was deprecated some time ago and has been removed

User · Answer

As others have said  you can install a password cache helper  I mostly just wanted to post the link for other platforms  and not just Mac  I m running a Linux server and this was helpful  Caching your GitHub password in Git  For Mac   git credential-osxkeychain   Windows   git config --global credential helper wincred   Linux   git config --global credential helper cache git config --global credential helper  cache --timeout 3600    Set the cache to timeout after 1 hour  setting is in seconds

User · Answer

Git will prompt you for a passowrd if you are using https protocol  If you use ssh  it will do the authentication using your private key instead of asking for password   https   help github com en github authenticating-to-github adding-a-new-ssh-key-to-your-github-account  Here is how to fix this  git remote -v This will show the url for origin  And you will notice https in this url   Example   https   github com PrestaShop PrestaShop git  Now  you will have to just remove this first and add the url with ssh git remote remove origin git remote add origin git github com PrestaShop PrestaShop git

User · Answer

Running macOS Cataline 10 15  the keychain caching method was not working for me  And I wanted to use https    not ssh   Here is what worked for me   git remote rm origin  git remote add origin https   your git username your git password github com path to your git git   This should work on GitLab too  Make sure if the username contains an email address  to remove the  email part or you ll get an error stating URL using bad illegal format or missing URL   Hope this helps

User · Answer

On Windows Subsystem for Linux  WSL  this was the only solution that I found to work   eval  ssh-agent    ssh-add    ssh id rsa  It was a problem with the ssh-agent not being properly registered in WSL

User · Answer

In my case  I was always getting a password prompt when I tried to cherrypick a URL like below  git fetch http   username gerrit-domainname repositoryname refs changes 1 12345 1  amp  amp  git cherry-pick FETCH HEAD  This URL worked well when cherrypicked on a different machine  However  At my end when I try to cherrypick with correct password abc 12345 I used to get below error  remote  Unauthorized remote  Authentication failed for http   username gerrit-domainname    In my git config file the remote URL was like below  url   ssh   gerrit-domainname 8080 wnc  Solution  I resolved the authentication failure issue by providing the HTTP Password which I found at My gerrit account - gt  Settings - gt  HTTP Password  The HTTP Password was something like Th IsAduMMy PaSS WordT RY Your OwNPaSs which was way different than my actual password abc 12345 Note  My URL to cherrpick starts with git fetch     So  this solution might work on git checkout download where the URL starts with git fetch

User · Answer

I had the same problem  MacOS Mojave keychain keeps asking for the passphrase  Your id rsa should be encrypted with a passphrase for security  Then try adding it to the keychain ssh-add -K    ssh id rsa If your key is in another folder than    ssh then substitute with the correct folder  Keychain now knows your ssh key  hopefully  all works now  If you are still facing the issue then try 1  brew install keychain  2  echo   usr local bin keychain  HOME  ssh id rsa   gt  gt     bash profile    echo  source  HOME  keychain  HOSTNAME-sh     bash profile  3  ssh-add -K    ssh id rsa  Hopefully  it should work now

User · Answer

Guide to Git on Windows and GitHub using SSH to push pull  An Illustrated Guide to Git on Windows   Download and install PuTTY Set environment variable  GIT SSH     path to plink exe   in installed putty folder  - very important    Restart Windows Explorer for environment variables to take effect  cannot only restart command prompt  Run puttygen exe to generate new key  copy the public key to the GitHub site Save this new private key somewhere safe on the disk  preferable not Dropbox  Run putty exe and connect SSH to github co Quickly get to startup folder by running  shell startup   Make your private key startup with Windows via pageant  Create a shortcut in Startup folder with syntax  path to pageant exe   path to privatekey  We do not need to set the  puttykeyfile  setting inside  git config of our repositories Very important is that the  SSH clone URL  of GitHub is used and not HTTPS

User · Answer

Having a typo in the URL will make Git asking you for username and password  stupid Git   It was tested on Kali Linux  Git version 2 7 0   Try      git clone https   github com thisrepodoesntexists doesntexists git

User · Answer

Before you can use your key with GitHub  follow this step in the tutorial  Testing your SSH connection     ssh -T git github com   Attempts to ssh to GitHub

User · Answer

orkoden s answer on using the keychain with Git in your terminal was incomplete and raises errors  This is what you have to do to save the username and password you enter in the the terminal in your keychain   curl http   github-media-downloads s3 amazonaws com osx git-credential-osxkeychain -o git-credential-osxkeychain sudo mv git-credential-osxkeychain  usr local bin sudo chmod u x  usr local bin git-credential-osxkeychain   Then enter  git config --global credential helper osxkeychain   If you have already done the part with Git configuration before the curl stuff  it s no problem  it ll work

User · Answer

I agree with  codehugger  and using the instruction of  orkoden  it worked for me - on NetBeans 7 3 - when you right-click on the file and select context menu - push - a  push to remote  window opened - there are two options here    origin https   github com myaccount myproject git  https   github com myaccount myproject git    As you can see  the difference is the origin parameter in the URL - you do not want to choose this option  1  you want to check option  2   and that works just fine for me

User · Answer

If you re using Windows and this has suddenly started happening on out of the blue on GitHub  it s probably due to GitHub s recent disabling support for deprecated cryptographic algorithms on 2018-02-22  in which case the solution is simply to download and install the latest version of either the full Git for Windows  or just the Git Credential Manager for Windows

User · Answer

If Git prompts you for a username and password every time you try to interact with GitHub  you re probably using the HTTPS clone URL for your repository   Using an HTTPS remote URL has some advantages  it s easier to set up than SSH  and usually works through strict firewalls and proxies  However  it also prompts you to enter your GitHub credentials every time you pull or push a repository   You can configure Git to store your password for you  For Windows   git config --global credential helper wincred

User · Answer

If you have SSH agent set up  you can also add this to your    gitconfig to force git to use SSH for all GitHub repos rather than HTTPS    url  ssh   git github com        insteadOf   git   github com      insteadOf   https   github com     If you re mostly working with public repos  you can also use pushInsteadOf rather than insteadOf  as reading from a public repo can be done without authentication

User · Answer

As static rtti said above  change  https   github com username repo git git   github com username repo git   to  ssh   git github com username repo git   I myself changed the https in the  git config file to ssh  but it still wasn t working  Then I saw that you must change github com to git github com  A good way to get the actual correct URL is to go to your project page and click this   Change HTTPS to SSH to get the right URL  Then add this URL to the configuration file

User · Answer

I think you may have the wrong Git repository URL    Open  git config and find the  remote  origin   section  Make sure you re using the SSH one   ssh   git github com username repo git   You can see the SSH URL in the main page of your repository if you click Clone or download and choose ssh   And NOT the https or git one   https   github com username repo git git   github com username repo git   You can now validate with just the SSH key instead of the username and password    If Git complains that  origin  has already been added  open the  config file and edit the url         part after  remote origin  as url   ssh   github username repo git    The same goes for other services  Make sure the address looks like  protocol   something url  E g   git config for Azure DevOps    remote  origin       url   https   mystore dev azure com mystore myproject      fetch    refs heads   refs remotes origin

User · Answer

Microsoft Stack solution  Windows and Azure DevOps   First open the  git config file to make sure the address looks like    protocol   something url   E g   git config for Azure DevOps    remote  origin       url   https   mystore dev azure com mystore myproject      fetch    refs heads   refs remotes origin     If the problem still persists  open Windows Credential Manager  click on the safebox named Windows Credentials and remove all the git related credentials   Now the next time you log into git  it won t go away anymore

User · Answer

I had this issue  A repo was requiring me to input credentials every time  All my other repos were not asking for my credentials  They were even set up to track GitLab using HTTPS under the same account credentials  so it was weird that they all worked fine except one  Comparing the  git config files  I found that there were 2 key differences in the URLs which was causing the issue  Does ask for credentials  https   gitlab com myaccount myproject  Does not ask for credentials  https   myaccount gitlab com myaccount myproject git   So adding the  quot myaccount  quot  and  quot  git quot  resolved the issue in my case

User · Answer

Step 1  check your current configuration  cat  git config   You will get     core      repositoryformatversion   0     filemode   true     bare   false     logallrefupdates   true     ignorecase   true     precomposeunicode   true  remote  origin       url   https   github com path to your git git     fetch    refs heads   refs remotes origin    user      name   your username     email   your email  branch  master-staging       remote   origin     merge   refs heads master-staging   Step 2  remove your remote origin  git remote rm origin   Step 3  add remote origin back with your username and password  git remote add origin https   your git username your git password github com path to your git git

User · Answer

There are different kind of authentications depending on your configuration  Here are a few    git credential-osxkeychain   If your credential is invalid  remove it by     git credential-osxkeychain erase   or     printf  protocol https nhost github com n    git credential-osxkeychain erase   So Git won t ask you for the keychain permission again  Then configure it again   See  Updating credentials from the OS X Keychain at GitHub Your SSH RSA key   For this  you need to compare your SSH key with what you ve added  check by ssh-add -L ssh-add -l if you re using the right identity  Your HTTPS authentication  if you re using https instead of ssh protocol    Use    netrc   HOME   netrc on Windows   to provide your credentials  e g     machine stash1 mycompany com   login myusername   password mypassword    Learn more  Syncing with GitHub at Stack nbsp Overflow

User · Answer

This happened to me when I upgraded to macOS v10 12  Sierra   Looks like the SSH agent got cleared upon upgrade     ssh-add -L The agent has no identities    Simply running ssh-add located my existing identity  I entered the password and was good to go again

User · Answer

Use this   Replace github com with the appropriate hostname  git remote set-url origin git github com user repo git

User · Answer

git config credential helper store   Note  While this is convenient  Git will store your credentials in clear text in a local file   git-credentials  under your project directory  see below for the  home  directory   If you don t like this  delete this file and switch to using the cache option   If you want Git to resume to asking you for credentials every time it needs to connect to the remote repository  you can run this command   git config --unset credential helper   To store the passwords in  git-credentials in your  HOME  directory as opposed to the project directory  use the --global flag  git config --global credential helper store

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I figure you fixed your problem  but I don t see the solution here that helped me  so here it is   Type in terminal   echo     gt     ssh known hosts   That will empty your known hosts file  and you ll have to add every host you used and have connected to  but it solved the problem

[git] Git keeps prompting me for a password

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