GITCREDENTIALS(7) Git Manual GITCREDENTIALS(7)NAMEgitcredentials - providing usernames and passwords to Git
SYNOPSIS
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. 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.
The first is simple and appropriate if you do not have secure storage
available for a password. It is generally configured by adding this to
your config:
[credential "https://example.com"]
username = me
Credential helpers, on the other hand, are external programs from which
Git can request both usernames and passwords; they typically interface
with secure storage provided by the OS or other programs.
To use a helper, you must first select one to use. Git currently
includes the following helpers:
cache
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.
You may also have third-party helpers installed; search for
credential-* in the output of git help -a, and consult the
documentation of individual helpers. Once you have selected a helper,
you can tell Git to use it by putting its name into the
credential.helper variable.
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
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.
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.
For instance, imagine we are accessing https://example.com/foo.git.
When Git looks into a config file to see if a section matches this
context, it will consider the two a match if the context is a
more-specific subset of the pattern in the config file. For example, if
you have this in your config file:
[credential "https://example.com"]
username = foo
then we will match: both protocols are the same, both hosts are the
same, and the "pattern" URL does not care about the path component at
all. However, this context would not match:
[credential "https://kernel.org"]
username = foo
because the hostnames differ. Nor would it match foo.example.com; Git
compares hostnames exactly, without considering whether two hosts are
part of the same domain. Likewise, a config entry for
http://example.com would not match: Git compares the protocols exactly.
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 following options are available in either location:
helper
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.
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. See the documentation for Git’s credentials
API[1] for details.
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
NOTES
1. credentials API
file:///usr/share/doc/git-doc/technical/api-credentials.html
Git 2.0.0 05/29/2014 GITCREDENTIALS(7)
