I was looking for a way to store credentials securely while connecting to our Git server which uses SSL. I came across this suggestion by @james-ward (only edit I made was I updated our "system" config instead of our "global" config for Git (https://stackoverflow.com/a/14528360/6195194)
sudo apt-get install libgnome-keyring-dev
cd /usr/share/doc/git/contrib/credential/gnome-keyring
sudo make
git config --system credential.helper /usr/share/doc/git/contrib/credential/gnome-keyring/git-credential-gnome-keyring
I then can run
git clone https://ipaddress/git/repo.git
and the credential helper will store my credentials, however when I run the following:
sudo git clone https://ipaddress/git/repo.git testfolder
it give me the following error
** (process:3713): CRITICAL **: Error communicating with gnome-keyring-daemon
I sometimes need to run sudo git clone since sometimes the directory where I need to make a clone requires it. Any help would be appreciated.
Versions I am using:
- git version 1.9.1
- Ubuntu Server 14.0.4
Thank you in advance!
-Richard O.
Beside the use of sudo, note that in 2016, libgnome-keyring is specific to GNOME and is now deprecated (since January 2014, actually).
2022 option: git-credential-manager
Microsoft provides a cross-platform credential helper named GCM (Git Credential Manager), which you can install (no need to build it) and configure:
git-credential-manager-core configure
You will need Git 2.27+ to use it.
2016 option: git-credential-libsecret
Git 2.11+ (Q4 2016) included a new credential helper using libsecret.
See commit 87d1353 (09 Oct 2016) by Mantas Mikulėnas (grawity).
(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit bfe800c, 26 Oct 2016)
A new credential helper that talks via "libsecret" with implementations of XDG Secret Service API has been added to contrib/credential/.
it uses libsecret which can support other implementations of XDG Secret
Service API.
But in 2022, this is no longer needed. See above
As noted by mati865 in the comments:
It should be noted that some distros like Arch and Fedora provide helpers available as both binary and source.
- Libsecret binary on Arch:
/usr/lib/git-core/git-credential-libsecret, and - Libsecret binary on Fedora:
/usr/libexec/git-core/git-credential-libsecret.
Note: As @rugk adds in the comments, for Fedora and Git v2.25.2-1 or higher, you need to install an extra package with that binary, because it has been split from the main git package:
dnf install git-credential-libsecret
Git 2.41 (Q2 2023) clarifies:
See commit 0a3a972, commit 64f1e65, commit de2fb99, commit 048b673, commit 5747c80, commit 71201ab, commit 16b305c (01 May 2023) by Taylor Blau (ttaylorr).
(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit fbbf60a, 10 May 2023)
contrib/credential: remove 'gnome-keyring' credential helper
Co-authored-by: Jeff King
Signed-off-by: Jeff King
Signed-off-by: Taylor Blau
libgnome-keyring was deprecated in 2014 (in favor of libsecret), more than nine years ago.
The credential helper implemented using libgnome-keyring has had a small handful of commits since 2013, none of which implemented or changed any functionality.
The last commit to do substantial work in this area was 15f7221 ("contrib/git-credential-gnome-keyring.c: support really ancient gnome-keyring", 2013-09-23, Git v1.8.5-rc0 -- merge), just shy of nine years ago.
This credential helper suffers from the same fgets()-related injection attack (using the new "wwwauth[]" feature) as in the previous commit.
Instead of patching it, let's remove this helper as deprecated.