How to Set up Github credentials on Linux/macOS

As of August 13, 2021, You can no longer use your Github password for Git operations through terminals. Additionally, PUEO does not allow access through personal access tokens. Therefore, before interacting with any pueo repo, you must set up ssh on your computer.

The following tutorial is based on this video.

Generating an SSH key in the terminal

Enter

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C your-email@example.com

where your-email@example.com is the email you use to register for Github. The -t ed25519 option indicates that we will use this particular type of encryption for the key.

Run the above command, press Enter if you wish to store the key at the default location. Press Enter} again if you want to skip making a passphrase.

Activate the SSH agent

Run the following command

eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"

to start the ssh agent. The terminal should return something like

Agent pid 12889

Edit ssh config file

Open/create an ssh configuration file through any text editor. For instance,

vim ~/.ssh/config

Put the following content in the configuration file:

Host *
    AddKeysToAgent yes
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

(quit vim by pressing Esc, then :, then w+q.

Add Key to Agent

ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

Inform Github

Go to Github SSH and GPG keys setting page and click on the “New SSH key” button on the top right corner. Enter whatever you want for the Title.

Now go back to the terminal and type

cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

cat

cat is a command that reads the content of a text file. Some (crazy) people rebinds the command to dog.

Important

Make sure you include the .pub! It represents the public key.

Copy whatever cat returns on your terminal to the Github page and click “Add SSH key”. Github will ask for your password for confirmation.

Confirmation

Check that the key works through

ssh -T git@github.com

(and enter yes if the computer asks you whether or not to continue connecting to github.com) Don’t worry about the -T option. Basically, it suppresses some messages.

If you see a greeting message like

Hi XXX! You’ve successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access.

it means you have suceeded.