Clone a private repo of github with username and password

git authentication github git-clone private-repository
Usman Afzal picture Usman Afzal · Mar 31, 2014 · Viewed 49.9k times · Source

I have configured Account A on my system with Global configurations and I can clone all my repos from there.

Now I don't want to change the configuration and I want to clone and do all operations of account B with my username and password. How can I do this?

I have tried:

git clone username:[email protected]:*****/******.git

But with no success.

Answer

VonC picture VonC · Mar 31, 2014

You can try with the complete https url:

git clone https://username:<token>@github.com/*****/******.git

If you omit the https:// part (and use ':' instead of '/'), it would be interpreted like an ssh url.

The GitHub help page "Which remote URL should I use?" confirms an https url can access private repos.

Note: I wouldn't put the token directly in the url, but use a credential manager to get the right password for the right user.

git clone https://[email protected]/*****/******.git

Reminder: since Aug. 2021 Token (or SSH key) authentication are required for all authenticated Git operations for GitHub.
Here, the token is a PAT (Personal Access Token).

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