Push to GitHub without a password using ssh-key

If it is asking you for a username and password, your origin remote is pointing at the HTTPS URL rather than the SSH URL.

Change it to ssh.

For example, a GitHub project like Git will have an HTTPS URL:

https://github.com/<Username>/<Project>.git

And the SSH one:

[email protected]:<Username>/<Project>.git

You can do:

git remote set-url origin [email protected]:<Username>/<Project>.git

to change the URL.

In case you are indeed using the SSH URL, but still are asked for username and password when git pushing:

git remote set-url origin [email protected]:<Username>/<Project>.git

You should try troubleshooting with:

ssh -vT [email protected]

Below is a piece of sample output:

...
debug1: Trying private key: /c/Users/Yuci/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: Trying private key: /c/Users/Yuci/.ssh/id_dsa
debug1: Trying private key: /c/Users/Yuci/.ssh/id_ecdsa
debug1: Trying private key: /c/Users/Yuci/.ssh/id_ed25519
debug1: No more authentication methods to try.
Permission denied (publickey).

I actually have already added the public key to GitHub before, and I also have the private key locally. However, my private key is of a different name called /c/Users/Yuci/.ssh/github_rsa.

According to the sample output, Git is trying /c/Users/Yuci/.ssh/id_rsa, which I don't have. Therefore, I could simply copy github_rsa to id_rsa in the same directory.

cp /c/Users/Yuci/.ssh/github_rsa /c/Users/Yuci/.ssh/id_rsa

Now when I run ssh -vT [email protected] again, I have:

...
debug1: Trying private key: /c/Users/Yuci/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: Authentication succeeded (publickey).
...
Hi <my username>! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access.
...

And now I can push to GitHub without being asked for username and password :-)

Additionally for gists, it seems you must leave out the username

git remote set-url origin [email protected]:<Project code>

As usual, create an SSH key and paste the public key to GitHub. Add the private key to ssh-agent. (I assume this is what you have done.)

To check everything is correct, use ssh -T [email protected]

Next, don't forget to modify the remote point as follows:

git remote set-url origin [email protected]:username/your-repository.git