Using Two Factor Authentication to clone my repository in Github
Posted by Ninja Space Content on Wednesday, December 30, 2020 Under: tech issues
I had issues with cloning my repository today. It's related to my Two Factor Authentication that I enabled recently. For documentation purposes to help myself in the future and anyone else reading this, this is how I got it to work. Note that things in black bold are what I typed in my terminal and the things in sky blue are what the terminal responded with to make it easier to read through.
Before I started any terminal commands, I went into the GitHub site and created a new repository (I used the plus sign button) and then went onto my desktop and created a new folder name. Both of these are for my clone that I am about to explain in detail below. Here we go! (Sorry, too much Jamesify)
First, when I attempted to git clone https://github(my old GitHub repository).git in my terminal in the new folder I was in, I got this message immediately:
"remote: Invalid username or password."
"fatal: Authentication failed for 'https://github(my old GitHub repository).git'.
So, then I realized I needed to supply one of my tokens now (after you enabled two-factor authentication with GitHub, they supply you a list of tokens and you save them in a safe place to use) with my username and password. So I tried the following in my terminal:
git clone https://(my old GitHub repository) Username: tillyninjaspace Password: xxxxx-xxxxx
(Note: I replaced my Password token with "x's" for security purposes.)
I got access now (YAY!) but then got returned the following:
Before I started any terminal commands, I went into the GitHub site and created a new repository (I used the plus sign button) and then went onto my desktop and created a new folder name. Both of these are for my clone that I am about to explain in detail below. Here we go! (Sorry, too much Jamesify)
First, when I attempted to git clone https://github(my old GitHub repository).git in my terminal in the new folder I was in, I got this message immediately:
"remote: Invalid username or password."
"fatal: Authentication failed for 'https://github(my old GitHub repository).git'.
So, then I realized I needed to supply one of my tokens now (after you enabled two-factor authentication with GitHub, they supply you a list of tokens and you save them in a safe place to use) with my username and password. So I tried the following in my terminal:
git clone https://(my old GitHub repository) Username: tillyninjaspace Password: xxxxx-xxxxx
(Note: I replaced my Password token with "x's" for security purposes.)
I got access now (YAY!) but then got returned the following:
fatal: Too many arguments.
usage: git clone [<options>] [--] <repo> [<dir>]
-v, --verbose be more verbose
-q, --quiet be more quiet
--progress force progress reporting
-n, --no-checkout don't create a checkout
--bare create a bare repository
--mirror create a mirror repository (implies bare)
-l, --local to clone from a local repository
--no-hardlinks don't use local hardlinks, always copy
-s, --shared setup as shared repository
--recursive ... alias of --recurse-submodules
--recurse-submodules[=<pathspec>]
initialize submodules in the clone
-j, --jobs <n> number of submodules cloned in parallel
--template <template-directory>
directory from which templates will be used
--reference <repo> reference repository
--reference-if-able <repo>
reference repository
--dissociate use --reference only while cloning
-o, --origin <name> use <name> instead of 'origin' to track upstream
-b, --branch <branch>
checkout <branch> instead of the remote's HEAD
-u, --upload-pack <path>
path to git-upload-pack on the remote
--depth <depth> create a shallow clone of that depth
--shallow-since <time>
create a shallow clone since a specific time
--shallow-exclude <revision>
deepen history of shallow clone, excluding rev
--single-branch clone only one branch, HEAD or --branch
--no-tags don't clone any tags, and make later fetches not to follow them
--shallow-submodules any cloned submodules will be shallow
--separate-git-dir <gitdir>
separate git dir from working tree
-c, --config <key=value>
set config inside the new repository
--server-option <server-specific>
option to transmit
-4, --ipv4 use IPv4 addresses only
-6, --ipv6 use IPv6 addresses only
--filter <args> object filtering
So I had to try something different and decided to do a ---bare clone first using this in my terminal:
git clone --bare https://github.com(my old GitHub repository).git
And it returned with these promising lines:
So I had to try something different and decided to do a ---bare clone first using this in my terminal:
git clone --bare https://github.com(my old GitHub repository).git
And it returned with these promising lines:
Cloning into bare repository '...'
remote: Enumerating objects: 32994, done.
remote: Enumerating objects: 32994, done.
remote: Total 32994 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 32994
Receiving objects: 100% (32994/32994), 31.14 MiB | 16.66 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (7710/7710), done.
Great! So now after I have successfully done a clone --bare, I tried to just do a straight up clone again with the following command:
Great! So now after I have successfully done a clone --bare, I tried to just do a straight up clone again with the following command:
git clone https://github.com(my old GitHub repository).git
And it responded positively this time with the following lines:
And it responded positively this time with the following lines:
Cloning into '...'
remote: Enumerating objects: 32994, done.
remote: Total 32994 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 32994
Receiving objects: 100% (32994/32994), 31.14 MiB | 16.66 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (7710/7710), done.
Now, I need to make sure I am at the very file I need to clone this old repository to. This step is very important. I typed 'ls' to see where I'm at and sure enough, I wasn't in the right folder in my terminal so I 'cd' into the folder that I needed to clone the old repository into. This is the new folder I created that I mentioned at the beginning of this post.
So, after I made sure I was in the right folder, I wrote the following command to include my new GitHub repository:
git remote set-url origin https://github(my NEW GitHub repository).git
I didn't see any messages returned to confirm anything but to not lose track of where I was at, I continued. I now have to push the files I had just cloned to my new Github repository so I did the following command:
Resolving deltas: 100% (7710/7710), done.
Now, I need to make sure I am at the very file I need to clone this old repository to. This step is very important. I typed 'ls' to see where I'm at and sure enough, I wasn't in the right folder in my terminal so I 'cd' into the folder that I needed to clone the old repository into. This is the new folder I created that I mentioned at the beginning of this post.
So, after I made sure I was in the right folder, I wrote the following command to include my new GitHub repository:
git remote set-url origin https://github(my NEW GitHub repository).git
I didn't see any messages returned to confirm anything but to not lose track of where I was at, I continued. I now have to push the files I had just cloned to my new Github repository so I did the following command:
git push
And the terminal did the following:
And the terminal did the following:
Enumerating objects: 32994, done.
Counting objects: 100% (32994/32994), done.
Delta compression using up to 8 threads
Compressing objects: 100% (23680/23680), done.
Writing objects: 100% (32994/32994), 31.14 MiB | 1.60 MiB/s, done.
Total 32994 (delta 7710), reused 32994 (delta 7710)
remote: Resolving deltas: 100% (7710/7710), done.
To https://github.com/tillyninjaspace/fitness_trackr_react.git
* [new branch] main -> main
I went to my new GitHub link on my browser and Voila! All my files are in my new repository now. My clone worked. I hope this will work for you as well. Also, I only had to use the password and token once to authenticate this whole process at the beginning. I don't know why I had to do the bare clone first. It doesn't make sense to me but I tried it and it worked for me. Maybe you can find a better way.
I went to my new GitHub link on my browser and Voila! All my files are in my new repository now. My clone worked. I hope this will work for you as well. Also, I only had to use the password and token once to authenticate this whole process at the beginning. I don't know why I had to do the bare clone first. It doesn't make sense to me but I tried it and it worked for me. Maybe you can find a better way.
In : tech issues
Tags: git hub clone with two factor authentication github issues fix
I have been building simple websites on my own since 2008 and currently run several websites at the moment, including this one. I used to be an account manager for an affiliate/e-commerce company, helping affiliates grow their sales so I have some knowledge on the business side and client side of affiliate marketing. Most recently, I decided to complete a JavaScript coding bootcamp and graduated in Dec 2020.