A fun git challenge! I had to make a request against a remote repository in git. The only issue is that only a shared GitHub account had access, not my own account (due to a vendor limitation). So when I occasionally needed to use this remote, I would have to log out and log in as the service account. It just seemed a bit messy.
I found a reasonable way to do this, and I’ll run through the steps below. (Have a better way? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!)
Generate an Access Token for the Shared Account
- Login with the shared account. Since I had the credentials, I did this via a normal browser session (in a private window since I was just logging in once.)
- Generate a personal access token. If you’re unfamiliar with this, you can follow the steps in the GitHub docs.
- Store in my password manager. This access token is as good as a password, so I treat it with the respect it deserves.
Add the Remote in Git
- Add the remote if it’s not already added:
git remote add REMOTE_NAME THE_URL_OF_THE_REMOTE
Unset the git credential manager temporarily
I’m doing the steps here manually but it could almost certainly be automated in a tiny script.
- Check the value of credential manager:
git config --system credential.helper. Note this value for later; you will need it to set things back. - Unset the credential manager, which will prompt you for PW going forward:
git config --system --unset credential.helper
Running the command
- Run your applicable command, e.g.
git fetch upstreamin my case. You’ll be prompted for a password. - Use the shared account username, and the personal access token as the password
Return things to normal
- Set the value of the credential manager back to what it was, e.g manager-core in my case:
git config --system credential.helper manager-core
That will let you quickly do one-time operations as the other account without needing to log out / in, mess up your other git credentials, etc.
Happy gitting!
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