three levels of config
Git has config at three levels: system, global and repo, each level overrides values at the previous level.
- System level: applied to every user on the system and all their repositories
- Global level: values specific personally to you, the user
- Repository level: specific to that single repository
To see combined config:
git config --list --show-scope --show-origin
If this is run under a particular repo, then all combined configuration will be shown. If this is not run under a repo, then sytem and global combined configuration will be shown.
To show system level config
git config --system --list
This config
To show configuration at a global level:
git config --global --list
This config is usually saved in ~/.git/config file
credential config
To find out credential.helper setting:
git config --get-all --show-origin credential.helper
This will list all configuraiton files containing that setting.
To save git password to a file:
git config --global credential.helper 'store'
# at a specific repo
git config credential.helper 'store'
The password will be saved in ~/.git-credentials file in the format like:
https://GITUSER:GITPASSWORD@DOMAIN.XXX.
multiple github accounts
With multiple github accounts in macos, the default keychain can only keep one,
which will block the other account.
This is because by default the system level credential.helper is osxkeychain.
This should be unset (or comment out in system level gitconfig file).
In addition to that, the global gitconfig file should also unset or comment out
credential.helper setting.
Instead, unfortunately, only one account’s credential could be saved in a file
store. To prevent cross-account auth rejection, each repo belonging to that
account can set credential.helper to store,
those repos will look for credential (of that account) in ~/.git-credentials file.
Since macos has osxkeychain, we can use that for the other account.
For repos belonging to the other account, set credential.helper to osxkeychain.
git config credential.helper 'osxkeychain'