Github authentication: how to use Github as Maven repo when repo is private

Question

I'm trying to store some of our private artifacts on Github and would like to access them as if they were part of a Maven repo. There are lots of pages that explain how to create a public Maven repo on Github: you just put the artifacts in the proper directory structure in your project, and then access them using a "raw" URL:

<repositories>
  <repository>
    <id>myrepo.myname.github.com</id>
    <url>https://github.com/myname/myproject/raw/master/repositories/releases/</url>
  </repository>
</repositories>   

So far, so good. Now the trouble is that I can't figure out how to access the repo if it's private. I've added a username and password to my settings.xml, but it doesn't work:

<servers>
    <server>
      <id>myrepo.myname.github.com</id>
      <username>myusername</username>
      <password>mypassword</password>
    </server>
 </servers>

What's the trick?

Answer 1

The question is now moot. Github has eliminated downloads. They don't host binaries any more. Probably because of exactly the kind of abuse I've proposed...