Is there a way to cache https credentials for pushing commits?

Question

I recently switched to synchronizing my repositories to https:// on GitHub (due to firewall issues), and it asks for a password every time.

Is there a way to cache the credentials, instead of authenticating every time that git push?

Answer 1

Since Git 1.7.9 (released 2012), there is a neat mechanism in Git to avoid having to type your password all the time for HTTP / HTTPS, called credential helpers.

You can just use one of the following credential helpers:

git config --global credential.helper cache 

The credential.helper cache value tells Git to keep your password cached in memory for a particular amount of minutes. The default is 15 minutes, you can set a longer timeout with:

git config --global credential.helper "cache --timeout=3600" 

Which sets the cache for 1 hour, or:

git config --global credential.helper "cache --timeout=86400" 

For 1 day. You can also store your credentials permanently if so desired, see the other answers below.

GitHub's help also suggests that if you're on Mac OS X and used Homebrew to install Git, you can use the native Mac OS X keystore with:

git config --global credential.helper osxkeychain 

For Windows, there is a helper called Git Credential Manager for Windows or wincred in msysgit.

git config --global credential.helper wincred # obsolete 

With Git for Windows 2.7.3+ (March 2016):

git config --global credential.helper manager 

For Linux, you would use (in 2011) gnome-keyring(or other keyring implementation such as KWallet).

Nowadays (2020), that would be (on Linux)

Fedora

sudo dnf install git-credential-libsecret git config --global credential.helper /usr/libexec/git-core/git-credential-libsecret 

Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install libsecret-1-0 libsecret-1-dev cd /usr/share/doc/git/contrib/credential/libsecret sudo make git config --global credential.helper /usr/share/doc/git/contrib/credential/libsecret/git-credential-libsecret