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GIT-CREDENTIAL(1) | Git Manual | GIT-CREDENTIAL(1) |
NAME¶
git-credential - Retrieve and store user credentialsSYNOPSIS¶
git credential <fill|approve|reject>
DESCRIPTION¶
Git has an internal interface for storing and retrieving credentials from system-specific helpers, as well as prompting the user for usernames and passwords. The git-credential command exposes this interface to scripts which may want to retrieve, store, or prompt for credentials in the same manner as Git. The design of this scriptable interface models the internal C API; see the Git credential API[1] for more background on the concepts.TYPICAL USE OF GIT CREDENTIAL¶
An application using git-credential will typically use git credential following these steps: 1.Generate a credential description based on
the context.
For example, if we want a password for https://example.com/foo.git, we might
generate the following credential description (don’t forget the blank
line at the end; it tells git credential that the application finished feeding
all the information it has):
protocol=https host=example.com path=foo.git
2.Ask git-credential to give us a username
and password for this description. This is done by running git credential
fill, feeding the description from step (1) to its standard input. The
complete credential description (including the credential per se, i.e. the
login and password) will be produced on standard output, like:
In most cases, this means the attributes given in the input will be repeated in
the output, but Git may also modify the credential description, for example by
removing the path attribute when the protocol is HTTP(s) and
credential.useHttpPath is false.
If the git credential knew about the password, this step may not have involved
the user actually typing this password (the user may have typed a password to
unlock the keychain instead, or no user interaction was done if the keychain
was already unlocked) before it returned password=secr3t.
protocol=https host=example.com username=bob password=secr3t
3.Use the credential (e.g., access the URL
with the username and password from step (2)), and see if it’s
accepted.
4.Report on the success or failure of the
password. If the credential allowed the operation to complete successfully,
then it can be marked with an "approve" action to tell git
credential to reuse it in its next invocation. If the credential was rejected
during the operation, use the "reject" action so that git credential
will ask for a new password in its next invocation. In either case, git
credential should be fed with the credential description obtained from step
(2) (which also contain the ones provided in step (1)).
INPUT/OUTPUT FORMAT¶
git credential reads and/or writes (depending on the action used) credential information in its standard input/output. This information can correspond either to keys for which git credential will obtain the login/password information (e.g. host, protocol, path), or to the actual credential data to be obtained (login/password).The protocol over which the credential will be
used (e.g., https).
host
The remote hostname for a network
credential.
path
The path with which the credential will be
used. E.g., for accessing a remote https repository, this will be the
repository’s path on the server.
username
The credential’s username, if we already
have one (e.g., from a URL, from the user, or from a previously run
helper).
password
The credential’s password, if we are
asking it to be stored.
url
When this special attribute is read by git
credential, the value is parsed as a URL and treated as if its constituent
parts were read (e.g., url=https://example.com would behave as if
protocol=https and host=example.com had been provided). This can help callers
avoid parsing URLs themselves. Note that any components which are missing from
the URL (e.g., there is no username in the example above) will be set to
empty; if you want to provide a URL and override some attributes, provide the
URL attribute first, followed by any overrides.
NOTES¶
- 1.
- the Git credential API
04/08/2014 | Git 1.9.1 |