Issue
These days when I create a new repository on GitHub on the setup page I get:
git remote add origin https://github.com/nikhilbhardwaj/abc.git
git push -u origin master
And whenever I have to push a commit I need to enter my GitHub username and password.
I can manually change that to
[email protected]:nikhilbhardwaj/abc.git
in the .git/config. I find this quite irritating - is there some way I can configure git to use SSH by default?
Solution
Set up a repository's origin branch to be SSH
The GitHub repository setup page is just a suggested list of commands (and GitHub now suggests using the HTTPS protocol). Unless you have administrative access to GitHub's site, I don't know of any way to change their suggested commands.
If you'd rather use the SSH protocol, simply add a remote branch like so (i.e. use this command in place of GitHub's suggested command). To modify an existing branch, see the next section.
$ git remote add origin [email protected]:nikhilbhardwaj/abc.git
Modify a pre-existing repository
As you already know, to switch a pre-existing repository to use SSH instead of HTTPS, you can change the remote url within your .git/config file.
[remote "origin"]
fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
-url = https://github.com/nikhilbhardwaj/abc.git
+url = [email protected]:nikhilbhardwaj/abc.git
A shortcut is to use the set-url command:
$ git remote set-url origin [email protected]:nikhilbhardwaj/abc.git
More information about the SSH-HTTPS switch
- "Why is Git always asking for my password?" - GitHub help page.
- GitHub's switch to Smart HTTP - relevant StackOverflow question
- Credential Caching for Wrist-Friendly Git Usage - GitHub blog post about HTTPS, and how to avoid re-entering your password
Answered By - David Cain Answer Checked By - David Goodson (WPSolving Volunteer)