Git - How to use netrc file on Windows to save user and password

Question

Is it possible to use a  netrc file on Windows when I m using Git to clone a remote repository with HTTP and user - password

User · Answer

I am posting a way to use  netrc to download materials from the site www course com   If someone is going to use the coursera-dl to download the open-class materials on www coursera com  and on the Windows OS someone wants to use a file like   netrc  which is in like-Unix OS to add the option -n instead of -U  lt username gt  -P  lt password gt  for convenience  He she can do it like this    Check the home path on Windows OS  setx HOME  USERPROFILE  refer to VonC s answer   It will save the HOME environment variable as C  Users  username   Locate into the directory C  Users  username  and create a file name  netrc NOTE  there is NOT any suffix  the content is like  machine coursera-dl login  lt user gt  password  lt pass gt  Use a command like coursera-dl -n --path PATH  lt course name gt  to download the class materials  More coursera-dl options details for this page

User · Answer

Is it possible to use a  netrc file on Windows    Yes  You must    define environment variable  HOME   pre-Git 2 0  no longer needed with Git 2 0   put a  netrc file in  HOME    If you are using Windows 7 10  in a CMD session  type   setx HOME  USERPROFILE    and the  HOME  will be set to  C  Users  username    Go that that folder  cd  HOME   and make a file called   netrc   Note  Again  for Windows  you need a   netrc  file  not a   netrc  file   Its content is quite standard  Replace the  lt examples gt  with your values    machine  lt hostname1 gt  login  lt login1 gt  password  lt password1 gt  machine  lt hostname2 gt  login  lt login2 gt  password  lt password2 gt      Luke mentions in the comments      Using the latest version of msysgit on Windows 7  I did not need to set the HOME environment variable  The  netrc file alone did the trick    This is indeed what I mentioned in  Trying to    install    github   ssh dir not there   git-cmd bat included in msysgit does set the  HOME  environment variable    if not exist   HOME    set HOME  HOMEDRIVE  HOMEPATH   if not exist   HOME    set HOME  USERPROFILE          believes in the comments that   it seems that it won t work for http protocol   However  I answered that netrc is used by curl  and works for HTTP protocol  as shown in this example  look for  netrc  in the page      Also used with HTTP protocol here    netrc  netrc alternative to cURL      A common trap with with netrc support on Windows is that git will bypass using it if an origin https url specifies a user name    For example  if your  git config file contains      remote  origin        fetch    refs heads   refs remotes origin        url   https   bob code google com p my-project     Git will not resolve your credentials via  netrc  to fix this remove your username  like so      remote  origin        fetch    refs heads   refs remotes origin        url   https   code google com p my-project       Alternative solution  With git version 1 7 9   January 2012   This answer from Mark Longair details the credential cache mechanism which also allows you to not store your password in plain text as shown below     With Git 1 8 3  April 2013    You now can use an encrypted  netrc  with gpg   On Windows   HOME   netrc     not          A new read-only credential helper  in contrib   to interact with the  netrc  authinfo files has been added    That script would allow you to use gpg-encrypted netrc files  avoiding the issue of having your credentials stored in a plain text file      Files with the  gpg extension will be decrypted by GPG before parsing    Multiple -f arguments are OK  They are processed in order  and the first matching entry found is returned via the credential helper protocol       When no -f option is given   authinfo gpg   netrc gpg   authinfo  and  netrc files in your home directory are used in this order    To enable this credential helper   git config credential helper   shortname -f AUTHFILE1 -f AUTHFILE2        Note that Git will prepend  git-credential-  to the helper name and look for it in the path       and if you want lots of debugging info  git config credential helper   shortname -f AUTHFILE -d    or to see the files opened and data found  git config credential helper   shortname -f AUTHFILE -v    See a full example at  Is there a way to skip password typing when using https    github     With Git 2 18   June 2018   you now can customize the GPG program used to decrypt the encrypted  netrc file   See commit 786ef50  commit f07eeed  12 May 2018  by Luis Marsano        Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 017b7c5  30 May 2018        git-credential-netrc  accept gpg option      git-credential-netrc was hardcoded to decrypt with  gpg  regardless of   the gpg program option    This is a problem on distributions like Debian that call modern GnuPG something else  like  gpg2

User · Answer

This will let Git authenticate on HTTPS using  netrc    The file should be named  netrc and located in c  Users  lt username gt   You will need to set an environment variable called HOME  USERPROFILE   set system-wide environment variables using the System option in the control panel  Depending on the version of Windows  you may need to select  Advanced Options     The password stored in the  netrc file cannot contain spaces  quoting the password will not work

User · Answer

You can also install Git Credential Manager for Windows to save Git passwords in Windows credentials manager instead of  netrc  This is a more secure way to store passwords

[windows] Git - How to use .netrc file on Windows to save user and password

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