GitHub

Git

Authentication

GitHub doesn’t allow password authentication anymore to authenticate. Instead, it requires the use of personal access tokens that are more granular in their permissions.

• We can create a new token with Settings > Developer settings > Personal access tokens. We create a fine-grained token for private repositories we own, and a classic token for organisation repositories.
  • If modifying files (i.e., committing, pushing, pulling), be sure to tick relevant checkboxes. Most other settings can be left unchecked.
• Then, in our local repository, we need to slightly modify how we pull/push via HTTPS.
  • git remote -v lists the remote sources.
  • git remote remove origin will remove the origin link.
  • git remote set-url origin https://personal-access-token@github.com/your-repo.git will allow us to push/pull with the personal access token. This lets us bypass needing to enter it every time.

We can also use SSH keys.

• Once we see the public key, we can add it to our GitHub account.
• Settings > SSH and GPG keys > New SSH key. There, we paste our public key.
• We test the SSH connection with ssh -T git@github.com.