Git push results in "Authentication Failed"

git authentication github
zkirkland picture zkirkland · Jul 15, 2013 · Viewed 1M times · Source

I have been using Github for a little while and I have been fine with git add, git commit, and git push so far with no problems. Suddenly I am having an error that says:

fatal: Authentication Failed

In the terminal I cloned a repository, worked on a file and then I used git add to add the file to the commit log and when I did git commit, it worked fine. Finally, git push asks for username and password. I put those in correctly and every time I do this, it says the same error.

Does anyone have any idea what the cause of this problem is and how I can fix it?

The contents of .git/config are:

[core]
        repositoryformatversion = 0
        filemode = true
        bare = false
        logallrefupdates = true
[remote "origin"]
        url = http://www.github.com/######/Random-Python-Tests
        fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
[branch "master"]
        remote = origin
        merge = refs/heads/master
[user]
        name = #####
        email = ############

Answer

rc0r picture rc0r · Jan 9, 2014

If you enabled two-factor authentication in your Github account you won't be able to push via HTTPS using your accounts password. Instead you need to generate a personal access token. This can be done in the application settings of your Github account. Using this token as your password should allow you to push to your remote repository via HTTPS. Use your username as usual.

https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-personal-access-token-for-the-command-line/

You may also need to update the origin for your repository if set to https: 

git remote -v 
git remote remove origin 
git remote add origin [email protected]:user/repo.git

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