git clone an organisation repo with username password on url

Question

So, I have the following situation: 1. have access to an organisations github repo 2. 2fa enabled on github 3. clone works fine in ssh mode and via github web (ie credentials are fine).

What I am trying to do: I am trying to clone a repo on the url like so:

git clone https://mygithubusername:mygithubpwd@github.com/organisationname/org_git_repo.git

but I get back:

remote: Invalid username or password.
fatal: Authentication failed for ..

I am not really sure why. I do this url clone on my personal projects on gitlab, and it has always worked fine, so, I am perplexed why I get this error.

Worth saying that I do have a special char in my pwd ( # ) and I encode this using %23 like so:

git clone https://mygithubusername:mygithubpwd%23001@github.com/organisationname/org_git_repo.git

Any suggestions as to why this fails? Been looking for a couple of days now for a solution!

Answer 1

OK - so I have found a solution to this. It looks like when you use 2FA, you cannot simply just do clone on the cmd line using un/pwd combo.

The solution is to generate a token on github and then use this token on the cmd instead of pwd. This solves it.

Hopefully this helps someone.

Answer 2

Maybe you can try this bash script, which I created: https://github.com/hobbymarks/orgclone

Note: the script requires Github CLI https://cli.github.com/ ,so you need install Github CLI firstly.

In fact, it is only a bash script, so you can directly run orgclone.sh. or you can copy the code below to create your own script:

#!/bin/bash

GREEN='\033[0;32m'
RED='\033[0;31m'
NC='\033[0m' # No Color

LIMIT=500    
# Help                                                                                 
Help()
{
    # Display Help
    echo "git clone all the repos of an organization."
    echo
    echo "Syntax: orgClone.sh [-l NAME | -r NAME |h]"
    echo "options:"
    echo "l     List all repos in the NAME organization one bye one."
    echo "r     Run git clone repo in the NAME organization one bye one."
    echo "h     Print this Help."
    echo
}

# Main program                                                                 

# Orgnization Name
orgName=""

# List all repos in the org

ListRepos()
{
     echo "********** all repos in $orgName:"
     repos=$(gh repo list $orgName -L $LIMIT | cut -f 1 | cut -d "/" -f 2)
     idx=1
     while IFS= read -r line
     do
         if [[ -d $line ]] || [[ -d $line@$orgName ]]
         then
             echo -e "${GREEN}==>${NC}"$idx:$line
         else
             echo -e "${RED}-->${NC}"$idx:$line
         fi
         ((idx = idx + 1))
     done <<<"$repos"
}
# Git clone all repos in the org

CloneRepos()
{
     echo "********** all repos in $orgName:"
     repos=$(gh repo list $orgName -L $LIMIT |cut -f 1 | cut -d "/" -f 2)
     idx=1
     while IFS= read -r line
     do
         if [[ -d $line ]] || [[ -d $line@$orgName ]]
         then
             echo -e "${GREEN}==>${NC}"$idx:$line
         else
             echo -e "${RED}-->${NC}"$idx:$line
             git clone https://github.com/$orgName/$line.git
     fi
         ((idx = idx + 1))
     done <<<"$repos"
}

# Process the input options.                                                   
# Get the options
while getopts ":hr:l:" option; do
    case $option in
        h) # Display Help
            Help
            exit;;
        r) # Git clone all repos in the org
            orgName=$OPTARG
            CloneRepos
            exit;;
        l) # List all repos
            orgName=$OPTARG
            ListRepos
            exit;;
        \?) # Invalid option
            echo "Error: Invalid option."
            exit;;
    esac
done