1GITCREDENTIALS(7) Git Manual GITCREDENTIALS(7)
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6 gitcredentials - providing usernames and passwords to Git
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9 git config credential.https://example.com.username myusername
10 git config credential.helper "$helper $options"
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14 Git will sometimes need credentials from the user in order to perform
15 operations; for example, it may need to ask for a username and password
16 in order to access a remote repository over HTTP. This manual describes
17 the mechanisms Git uses to request these credentials, as well as some
18 features to avoid inputting these credentials repeatedly.
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21 Without any credential helpers defined, Git will try the following
22 strategies to ask the user for usernames and passwords:
23 1. If the GIT_ASKPASS environment variable is set, the program
25 specified by the variable is invoked. A suitable prompt is provided
26 to the program on the command line, and the user’s input is read
27 from its standard output.
28 2. Otherwise, if the core.askPass configuration variable is set, its
30 value is used as above.
31 3. Otherwise, if the SSH_ASKPASS environment variable is set, its
33 value is used as above.
34 4. Otherwise, the user is prompted on the terminal.
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38 It can be cumbersome to input the same credentials over and over. Git
39 provides two methods to reduce this annoyance:
40 1. Static configuration of usernames for a given authentication
42 context.
43 2. Credential helpers to cache or store passwords, or to interact with
45 a system password wallet or keychain.
46 The first is simple and appropriate if you do not have secure storage
48 available for a password. It is generally configured by adding this to
49 your config:
50 [credential "https://example.com"]
52 username = me
53 Credential helpers, on the other hand, are external programs from which
56 Git can request both usernames and passwords; they typically interface
57 with secure storage provided by the OS or other programs.
58 To use a helper, you must first select one to use. Git currently
60 includes the following helpers:
61 cache
63 Cache credentials in memory for a short period of time. See git-
64 credential-cache(1) for details.
65 store
67 Store credentials indefinitely on disk. See git-credential-store(1)
68 for details.
69 You may also have third-party helpers installed; search for
71 credential-* in the output of git help -a, and consult the
72 documentation of individual helpers. Once you have selected a helper,
73 you can tell Git to use it by putting its name into the
74 credential.helper variable.
75 1. Find a helper.
77 $ git help -a | grep credential-
79 credential-foo
80 2. Read its description.
83 $ git help credential-foo
85 3. Tell Git to use it.
88 $ git config --global credential.helper foo
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93 Git considers each credential to have a context defined by a URL. This
94 context is used to look up context-specific configuration, and is
95 passed to any helpers, which may use it as an index into secure
96 storage.
97 For instance, imagine we are accessing https://example.com/foo.git.
99 When Git looks into a config file to see if a section matches this
100 context, it will consider the two a match if the context is a
101 more-specific subset of the pattern in the config file. For example, if
102 you have this in your config file:
103 [credential "https://example.com"]
105 username = foo
106 then we will match: both protocols are the same, both hosts are the
109 same, and the "pattern" URL does not care about the path component at
110 all. However, this context would not match:
111 [credential "https://kernel.org"]
113 username = foo
114 because the hostnames differ. Nor would it match foo.example.com; Git
117 compares hostnames exactly, without considering whether two hosts are
118 part of the same domain. Likewise, a config entry for
119 http://example.com would not match: Git compares the protocols exactly.
120 If the "pattern" URL does include a path component, then this too must
122 match exactly: the context https://example.com/bar/baz.git will match a
123 config entry for https://example.com/bar/baz.git (in addition to
124 matching the config entry for https://example.com) but will not match a
125 config entry for https://example.com/bar.
126
128 Options for a credential context can be configured either in
129 credential.* (which applies to all credentials), or credential.<url>.*,
130 where <url> matches the context as described above.
131 The following options are available in either location:
133 helper
135 The name of an external credential helper, and any associated
136 options. If the helper name is not an absolute path, then the
137 string git credential- is prepended. The resulting string is
138 executed by the shell (so, for example, setting this to foo
139 --option=bar will execute git credential-foo --option=bar via the
140 shell. See the manual of specific helpers for examples of their
141 use.
142 If there are multiple instances of the credential.helper
144 configuration variable, each helper will be tried in turn, and may
145 provide a username, password, or nothing. Once Git has acquired
146 both a username and a password, no more helpers will be tried.
147 If credential.helper is configured to the empty string, this resets
149 the helper list to empty (so you may override a helper set by a
150 lower-priority config file by configuring the empty-string helper,
151 followed by whatever set of helpers you would like).
152 username
154 A default username, if one is not provided in the URL.
155 useHttpPath
157 By default, Git does not consider the "path" component of an http
158 URL to be worth matching via external helpers. This means that a
159 credential stored for https://example.com/foo.git will also be used
160 for https://example.com/bar.git. If you do want to distinguish
161 these cases, set this option to true.
162
164 You can write your own custom helpers to interface with any system in
165 which you keep credentials. See the documentation for Git’s credentials
166 API[1] for details.
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169 Part of the git(1) suite
170
172 1. credentials API
173 file:///usr/share/doc/git/technical/api-credentials.html
174Git 2.21.0 02/24/2019 GITCREDENTIALS(7)