Resolving GitHub Authentication Issues: Using Personal Access Tokens

Have you encountered this message when attempting to git push?

remote: Support for password authentication was removed on August 13, 2021. remote: Please see https://docs.github.com/get-started/getting-started-with-git/about-remote-repositories#cloning-with-https-urls for information on currently recommended modes of authentication. fatal: Authentication failed for ‘https://github.com/desirajusantosh/<>’ text

Don’t worry! GitHub has transitioned to more secure authentication methods. Here’s how to resolve this issue using a Personal Access Token (PAT):

Creating a Personal Access Token

1. Go to your GitHub account settings
2. Navigate to “Developer settings” > “Personal access tokens”
3. Click “Generate new token”
4. Set a descriptive name for your token
5. Choose an expiration date (or select “No expiration” if needed)
6. Select necessary scopes:
   • For most operations, the ‘repo’ scope is sufficient
   • This grants full control of private repositories
7. Click “Generate token” and copy it immediately

Using Your Personal Access Token

Once you have your PAT, you can use it in place of your password for Git operations:

• When prompted for a password, use the PAT instead
• For HTTPS cloning, use this format:

git clone https://your-personal-access-token@github.com/username/repo.git

Store credentials (optional):

Create a file at ~/.git-credentials with this line: https://{username}:{personal_access_token}@github.com Run: git config –global credential.helper store