Git: store credentials permanently via helpers

One of drawbacks when using DVCS Git is that one has to enter password every time he connects to remote server (if the server requires auth, of course). When you push frequently, it becomes annoying.
Luckily there's a way to solve the problem by storing credentials in config files. But beware that your passwords might be accessible to other users of the machine!


Let's do it.

Step 1

Open your preferred git config file. By preferred I mean the one that you wish to store your login/password in. Git utilizes two config files:

• "System" - the file {git_dir}\etc\gitconfig
• "Global" - the file %HOME%\.gitconfig

Using the latter is more secure as your home folder normally isn't accessible to other users. Admins may access it anyway so be warned. Also if you follow the simpler way of storing (Step 2.1.x) the location of credentials storage file will be fixed on %HOME%. I personally prefer portable solutions and I'm the only user of the machine so I selected "System" config file.

Step 2

Open config file and decide what your needs are.
If you have one account per remote domain, you can use simple way. I describe it in Steps 2.1.x.
If you have more than one account per domain (like two accounts on github) you'll need a bit more complicated actions, I describe them in Steps 2.2.x.

Step 2.1.1

Add following lines to the end of gitconfig file you've opened:

[credential]
 helper = store

This will enable credentials storing. Save the file.

Step 2.1.2

Loop through all the local repos connected with remotes and execute push or pull. Input password when you're asked to.
Thats all, your credentials are remembered in %HOME%\.git-credentials and you won't be asked for password again. Check that by executing push/pull one more time.
Note that the path of this file seem to be fixed; at least I haven't found a way to change it.

Mission complete.

Step 2.2.1

If you have several accounts on some domain, the above method won't fit because git would always uses only one credentials for all communication with domain. So we need to go deeper and use custom credential helper. If lots of technical info don't frighten you, you can read theory here and here. But in practice everything's much simpler. The idea is to create a trivial shell script that would do nothing but returning its command line parameter as password in the form git requires.

Add all your remote repos to the end of gitconfig file you've opened in the following form:

[credential "https://{username1}@{domain_addr}"]
 helper = repeater {passwd1}
[credential "https://{username2}@{domain_addr}"]
 helper = repeater {passwd2}

Where

• domain_addr is the address of domain that hosts your remote repo. For example, https://github.com.
• username1 and passwd1 are your first account on that domain. For example, Fr0sT-Brutal and foo.
• username2 and passwd2 are your second account on that domain.

Of course, use appropriate protocol (git:// or http(s)://) in domain addresses.
By this setting we tell git to use a custom credential helper named repeater for every address that starts with https://{username1}@{domain_addr} and execute it with password {passwd1} as first command-line parameter, for every address that starts with https://{username2}@{domain_addr} execute it with password {passwd2} and so on.

Save the file and close it.

Step 2.2.2

Proceed to {git_dir}\bin directory, create text file there, name it git-credential-repeater (no extension!) and insert the following lines:

#! /bin/sh
# Git credential helper, simply returns password transferred in 1st command line parameter.
# Must be registered in git config in the following form:
# [credential "http://{user_name}@{domain_name}"]
# helper = repeater {repo_pass}
if [ $2 = "get" ]; then
 echo "password=$1"
fi

Save it and close. As you can see, it's our trivial repeater that returns a password transferred in 1st parameter if command transferred in 2nd parameter is "get".

Step 2.2.3

Change remote repos' URLs where you need authorization to include your user name: https://YourUserName@github.com/YourUserName/YourRemoteRepo.git. This can be done via GUI or by editing {Your_Local_repo_dir}\.git\config file. If things are correct, this file should contain something like

[remote "origin"]
 url = https://Fr0sT-Brutal@github.com/Fr0sT-Brutal/App_EXIFTimeEdit.git
 fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

This step is important! Without it, git would be unable to distinguish your accounts and would prompt you for credentials. Note that your username in the url must be strictly identical (including case) to the one you wrote in gitconfig file.

So that's it. Check that you've done everything right by pushing/pullng to/from remotes you entered. Your credentials should be taken from config without prompting you.