How to setup Git Bash (msysgit) with a github token or ssh key

Question

New to Git.

Followed all the directions from github help pages but simple commands like git pull and git push continues to prompt my password on each invocation. Specifically, I set the following:

git config --global user.name "Your name"
git config --global user.email [email protected]
git config --global github.token 123321321sdssddaqqwq

I also setup ssh keys elaborately as per the steps mentioned in the help but password prompts don't go away.

Suggestions?

What is the actual prompt? It may actually be a prompt for your passphrase on your SSH key. — six8
– six8, Commented Sep 8, 2011 at 18:55

Mark Longair · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-08 19:23:03Z

9

From your comment saying that the password that works at this prompt is your GitHub password, I strongly suspect that you've cloned your repository using the https URL rather than the SSH URL. You can change that with:

 git remote set-url origin [email protected]:whoever/whatever.git

... where you should replace the last parameter with whatever's shown when you click the "SSH" button on your repository's page.

(You can check what URL origin currently refers to with git remote -v.)

answered Sep 8, 2011 at 19:23

Mark Longair

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1 Comment

Mark Longair Over a year ago

No problem. I thought this was a pretty good catch, though, and not a single up-vote from anyone? :)

Stefan Kendall · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-08 18:57:40Z

0

Did you sign your pub key with a password? If you sign your key with a password, you'll always be prompted for that key. If you want no password, re-generate your .pub file without a password and upload that to github. If anyone gets access to your machine, they can commit as you, of course.

answered Sep 8, 2011 at 18:57

Stefan Kendall

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pri Over a year ago

I regenerated the key without a passphrase and password prompt is still being asked. Note that the password I use to get past this is my github password.

knittl · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-08 19:04:34Z

0

You have to start ssh-agent, then use ssh-add to add your key. This requires the password once per session. You can also add it to the end of /etc/bashrc to add the key automatically on startup.

Better yet, have a simple function to your key to ssh-agent:

eval `ssh-agent`;
trap "kill $SSH_AGENT_PID" 0;
add-key {
  ssh-add;
}

answered Sep 8, 2011 at 19:04

knittl

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2 Comments

pri Over a year ago

I use windows. Why are these instructions not in the original github manual? What's the procedure to use github token as auth credentials?

knittl Over a year ago

This works on windows, given you use msysgit or a cygwin install. Don't ask me about github, I don't use it. What is a github token? You are only prompted for your password if you set up your key with one. I don't know if github assumes passwordless ssh keys …

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