How to store multiple PATs/passwords for use by git?

Question

One password is no problem

I wanted to store my credentials "safely" for use by git so I did as instructed here. This way I don't have to input password/PAT every single time, I perform any git operation.

1. Install libsecret using sudo apt-get install libsecret-1-0 libsecret-1-dev

2. Build the "credential manager" using sudo make --directory=/usr/share/doc/git/contrib/credential/libsecret

3. and then configure my local git folder using git config --global credential.helper \ /usr/share/doc/git/contrib/credential/libsecret/git-credential-libsecret

Works superb.

How to do the above with many passwords?

What I don't get is how to do the same for many passwords associated with different accounts/repositories. I was suggested to use gcm core.

I tried installing gcm core as instructed here.

1. Download .deb package

2. sudo dpkg -i <path-to-package> git-credential-manager-core configure

3. configure the "credential store" git config credential.credentialStore secretservice (as I use libsecret).

4. I removed the Credential helper pointing to /usr/share/doc/git/contrib/credential/libsecret/git-credential-libsecret from the local git config file.

It still doesn't work. When I try to push a repo, I get a garbled message with how to use git config followed by request to fill in credentials (shown here). I don't understand what I am doing! namely credential store, credential manager, secret-service and gcm core.

I looked here and here and I still don't get it.

Answer 1

Any credential helper should follow the same process.

But if you have multiple account/password for the same domain (say github.com for instance), then you need to change your remote URL

 cd /path/to/my/local/repo1
 git remote set-url origin https://[email protected]/user1/myRepo1
                                   ^^^^^^

 cd /path/to/my/local/repo2
 git remote set-url origin https://[email protected]/user1/myRepo2
                                   ^^^^^^

That way, the credential helper will differentiate your different account.
Since gcm core is a bit fineky to install, test it first with the classic libsecret-based helper.