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Authentication

The first thing to do is to authenticate with GitHub. This can be done in two ways:

  • SSH, with a private key (preferred)
  • HTTPS, with a Personal Access Token (PAT)

Git configuration (independent of login)

  1. git config --set user.name <username>

ℹ️ This is the name your commits will show up as

  1. git config --set user.email <user@domain.com>

HTTPS authentication

When you run a git pull or a git fetch, Git will ask for your password.

https://github.com/settings/tokens

Screenshot 2024-11-13 alle 09.05.50.png

⚠️ When you generate a token, GitHub will only display it once. Make sure to store it somewhere safe!

Here you can generate a Personal Access Token, to then copy and paste into the Terminal.

Note: the terminal will NOT display the token, for privacy reasons.

SSH authentication

Generate an SSH key-pair, as follows:

$ ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "user@domain.com"

Follow the guided procedure with the ssh-keygen tool and finish creating a key.

The tool will then have generated the two important files:

  • id_ed25519.pub: the public key we’ll upload to GitHub
  • id_ed25519: the private key we keep locally!

https://github.com/settings/ssh/new

This is where you’ll add a new SSH public key that GitHub will accept the private counterpart for.

Screenshot 2024-11-13 alle 09.11.49.png

Finally, add the new SSH key to your SSH agent:

# Start the agent in the background
$ eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
> Agent pid XXXXX

# Add the key
$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

If you don’t want to run the ssh-agent every time, you may add the command above to start it into your ~/.bashrc / ~/.zshrc file, to have it run automatically.

Why pick SSH for git authentication?

  • Commit signing with the same key
  • More versatile than a Personal Access Token
  • More private (encrypted secret — SSH key never leaves your machine)