NAME
gitcredentials - Providing usernames and passwords to GitSYNOPSIS
git config credential.https://example.com.username myusername git config credential.helper "$helper $options"
DESCRIPTION
Git will sometimes need credentials from the user in order to perform operations; for example, it may need to ask for a username and password in order to access a remote repository over HTTP. Some remotes accept a personal access token or OAuth access token as a password. This manual describes the mechanisms Git uses to request these credentials, as well as some features to avoid inputting these credentials repeatedly.REQUESTING CREDENTIALS
Without any credential helpers defined, Git will try the following strategies to ask the user for usernames and passwords: 1.If the GIT_ASKPASS environment
variable is set, the program specified by the variable is invoked. A suitable
prompt is provided to the program on the command line, and the user’s
input is read from its standard output.
2.Otherwise, if the core.askPass
configuration variable is set, its value is used as above.
3.Otherwise, if the SSH_ASKPASS
environment variable is set, its value is used as above.
4.Otherwise, the user is prompted on the
terminal.
AVOIDING REPETITION
It can be cumbersome to input the same credentials over and over. Git provides two methods to reduce this annoyance: 1.Static configuration of usernames for a
given authentication context.
2.Credential helpers to cache or store
passwords, or to interact with a system password wallet or keychain.
[credential "https://example.com"] username = me
Cache credentials in memory for a short period
of time. See git-credential-cache(1) for details.
store
Store credentials indefinitely on disk. See
git-credential-store(1) for details.
1.Find a helper.
$ git help -a | grep credential- credential-foo
2.Read its description.
$ git help credential-foo
3.Tell Git to use it.
$ git config --global credential.helper foo
CREDENTIAL CONTEXTS
Git considers each credential to have a context defined by a URL. This context is used to look up context-specific configuration, and is passed to any helpers, which may use it as an index into secure storage.[credential "https://example.com"] username = foo
[credential "https://kernel.org"] username = foo
CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
Options for a credential context can be configured either in credential.* (which applies to all credentials), or credential.<URL>.*, where <URL> matches the context as described above.The name of an external credential helper, and
any associated options. If the helper name is not an absolute path, then the
string git credential- is prepended. The resulting string is executed
by the shell (so, for example, setting this to foo --option=bar will
execute git credential-foo --option=bar via the shell. See the manual
of specific helpers for examples of their use.
If there are multiple instances of the credential.helper configuration
variable, each helper will be tried in turn, and may provide a username,
password, or nothing. Once Git has acquired both a username and a password, no
more helpers will be tried.
If credential.helper is configured to the empty string, this resets the
helper list to empty (so you may override a helper set by a lower-priority
config file by configuring the empty-string helper, followed by whatever set
of helpers you would like).
username
A default username, if one is not provided in
the URL.
useHttpPath
By default, Git does not consider the
"path" component of an http URL to be worth matching via external
helpers. This means that a credential stored for
https://example.com/foo.git will also be used for
https://example.com/bar.git. If you do want to distinguish these cases,
set this option to true.
CUSTOM HELPERS
You can write your own custom helpers to interface with any system in which you keep credentials. 1.If the helper string begins with
"!", it is considered a shell snippet, and everything after the
"!" becomes the command.
2.Otherwise, if the helper string begins with
an absolute path, the verbatim helper string becomes the command.
3.Otherwise, the string "git
credential-" is prepended to the helper string, and the result becomes
the command.
# run "git credential-foo" [credential] helper = foo # same as above, but pass an argument to the helper [credential] helper = "foo --bar=baz" # the arguments are parsed by the shell, so use shell # quoting if necessary [credential] helper = "foo --bar='whitespace arg'" # you can also use an absolute path, which will not use the git wrapper [credential] helper = "/path/to/my/helper --with-arguments" # or you can specify your own shell snippet [credential "https://example.com"] username = your_user helper = "!f() { test \"$1\" = get && echo \"password=$(cat $HOME/.secret)\"; }; f"
Return a matching credential, if any
exists.
store
Store the credential, if applicable to the
helper.
erase
Remove a matching credential, if any, from the
helper’s storage.
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite02/28/2023 | Git 2.39.2 |