How do I pull from a Git repository through an HTTP proxy?

Asked 24/9, 2008 at 15:58 Answered 13/8, 2023 at 6:42

540

Note: while the use-case described is about using submodules within a project, the same applies to a normal git clone of a repository over HTTP.

I have a project under Git control. I'd like to add a submodule:

git submodule add http://github.com/jscruggs/metric_fu.git vendor/plugins/metric_fu

But I get

...
got 1b0313f016d98e556396c91d08127c59722762d0
got 4c42d44a9221209293e5f3eb7e662a1571b09421
got b0d6414e3ca5c2fb4b95b7712c7edbf7d2becac7
error: Unable to find abc07fcf79aebed56497e3894c6c3c06046f913a under http://github.com/jscruggs/metri...
Cannot obtain needed commit abc07fcf79aebed56497e3894c6c3c06046f913a
while processing commit ee576543b3a0820cc966cc10cc41e6ffb3415658.
fatal: Fetch failed.
Clone of 'http://github.com/jscruggs/metric_fu.git' into submodule path 'vendor/plugins/metric_fu'

I have my HTTP_PROXY set up:

c:\project> echo %HTTP_PROXY%
http://proxy.mycompany:80

I even have a global Git setting for the http proxy:

c:\project> git config --get http.proxy
http://proxy.mycompany:80

Has anybody gotten HTTP fetches to consistently work through a proxy? What's really strange is that a few project on GitHub work fine (awesome_nested_set for example), but others consistently fail (rails for example).

Attenuator answered 24/9, 2008 at 15:58 Comment(6)

Could your proxy be censoring some words or something, thereby only affecting those repos where those words happen to show up as part of the byte stream? – Ferrotype 24/9, 2008 at 16:21

possible duplicate of Getting git to work with a proxy server – Bushwhacker 10/8, 2014 at 13:12

@alvaro, I think you mean that Getting git to work with a proxy server is a possible duplicate of this question. This question is older than the one to which you refer. – Downe 11/7, 2015 at 17:5

@James, your "global" Git setting for the proxy server is not actually global, but local. To be global, you need to supply argument --global to git config. – Downe 11/7, 2015 at 22:50

And just in case if anybody would wonder why would git ignore proxy settings: make sure you're working with the address not with git protocol, i.e. change git://github.com/SomeProject/foo.git → https://github.com/SomeProject/foo.git – Dupaix 25/7, 2016 at 9:52

@DerekMahar Older questions may be closed of duplicates of newer questions, if the newer question is better quality (or more generally applicatble). – Mediocrity 16/2, 2017 at 14:19

139

What finally worked was setting the http_proxy environment variable. I had set HTTP_PROXY correctly, but Git apparently likes the lower-case version better.

Attenuator answered 29/12, 2008 at 12:34 Comment(9)

Does setting http.proxy in the global Git configuration work? In your question, you set http.proxy in the local repository configuration. – Downe 25/8, 2011 at 14:14

In my case I had to set the https_proxy – Premature 30/9, 2011 at 19:54

https.proxy seemed to work for me as I was using https over github – Rokach 9/1, 2012 at 12:24

@MSmith If you had to set https_proxy this means you were using https not http which question is about. – Czech 5/3, 2012 at 15:45

Curl and libcurl don't recognize uppercase HTTP_PROXY and HTTPS_PROXY. See this link for more info: curl.haxx.se/mail/archive-2001-12/0034.html – Floating 24/7, 2012 at 20:2

set $all_proxy environment variable is also ok. – Fideicommissary 10/12, 2012 at 2:16

The "$http_proxy" environment variable is the http_proxy environment variable. – Donniedonnish 28/1, 2013 at 12:53

Didn't work for me. On the other hand, the solution from user 'Max MacLeod' worked (git config --global http.proxy mydomain...). – Anacreontic 11/8, 2014 at 11:31

Failed for me with: "The requested URL returned error: 501" – Bootle 4/1, 2018 at 15:24

639

You can also set the HTTP proxy that Git uses in global configuration property http.proxy:

git config --global http.proxy http://proxy.mycompany:80

To authenticate with the proxy:

git config --global http.proxy http://mydomain\\myusername:mypassword@myproxyserver:8080/

(Credit goes to @EugeneKulabuhov and @JaimeReynoso for the authentication format.)

Downe answered 4/8, 2010 at 14:55 Comment(14)

This worked for me: Set HTTP_PROXY in environment for user (on Windows), then the above comment with $HTTP_PROXY (uppercase). +1 for this solution. – Subphylum 29/6, 2011 at 15:42

CleverCoder, on Windows, you need to specify %HTTP_PROXY%, not $HTTP_PROXY (unless you're running Cygwin, of course). I will edit my answer to work in Windows instead of a Unix environment. – Downe 25/8, 2011 at 14:11

Use git config --global http.proxy http://mydomain\\myusername:mypassword@myproxyserver:8080 syntax to provide username/password – Subtangent 3/12, 2014 at 14:33

@JFA, I'm not sure I completely agree with your edit. Yes, the command you added does work on a Linux system, but the original question referred not to Linux, but to Windows. – Downe 10/7, 2015 at 14:3

@DerekMahar I don't see anything saying windows in the original post, but also, I reached this question from Google, saw that you used to have a linux answer, but deleted it, and had to search through the edits to find the difference, so my though was that if you already have the linux answer, and this question is getting a massive amount of traffic, you might as well have a multisystem solution. – Clamper 10/7, 2015 at 14:44

@JFA, the question doesn't mention Windows directly, but implies Windows because it refers to Windows drive letters. – Downe 10/7, 2015 at 15:0

@JFA, it's also important to point out that in order for your Linux command to work, the user must define environment variable http_proxy. The question clearly states that Windows environment variable HTTP_PROXY is defined which is why the Windows part of the answer refers to %HTTP_PROXY%. We cannot make the same assumption about shell variable http_proxy. – Downe 11/7, 2015 at 16:52

@JFA, I edited the answer so that it explicitly sets the environment variables before they are used. – Downe 11/7, 2015 at 17:25

For anyone who might be having problems with the proxy, http://<UserID>:<Password>@<ProxyURL>:<Port>/ worked for me – Montagnard 30/3, 2016 at 13:33

@Mr.Hyde, see stackoverflow.com/questions/11265463/…. – Downe 9/5, 2016 at 1:29

@DerekMahar, I don't want to sound "picky" but the first command in the "Linux" section of your answer does not set an environment (or global) variable. It sets a local shell variable. I mention this as git uses curl to fetch data over http(s) and curl can be directed using environment variables to use a proxy. Strangely, to specify the http proxy, curl accepts the http_proxy environment variable in lowercase only. Therefore I think your answer and comment might be misleading to people that are looking for an answer to set the environment variable to make git use a proxy. – Brittne 30/11, 2016 at 10:6

@DanielK., thank you for explaining why James A. Rosen's answer (https://mcmap.net/q/13487/-how-do-i-pull-from-a-git-repository-through-an-http-proxy) works! I hadn't known that curl reads lowercase environment variable http_proxy. The reason I used the local shell variables was not to be misleading, but to refer to the original question which refers to %HTTP_PROXY% and because JFA edited my answer to include a Windows specific solution that also referred to %HTTP_PROXY%. – Downe 30/11, 2016 at 15:15

However, since the Windows and Linux solutions differ only in the format of variable HTTP_PROXY, and this variable is not essential to the answer and adds only redundant information, I will merge the two commands together into a single, platform agnostic command. – Downe 30/11, 2016 at 15:15

One most important thing is that even using this, or $http_proxy, it only works when cloning with https, not with ssh!! That's what took me so long to find out. Hope it helps others with it – Dwelling 9/2, 2020 at 0:58

152

There are some great answers on this already. However, I thought I would chip in as some proxy servers require you to authenticate with a user Id and password. Sometimes this can be on a domain.

So, for example if your proxy server configuration is as follows:

Server: myproxyserver
Port: 8080
Username: mydomain\myusername
Password: mypassword

Then, add to your .gitconfig file, using the following command:

git config --global http.proxy http://mydomain\\myusername:mypassword@myproxyserver:8080

Don't worry about https. As long as the specified proxy server supports HTTP, and HTTPS, then one entry in the configuration file will suffice.

You can then verify that the command added the entry to your .gitconfig file successfully by doing cat .gitconfig:

At the end of the file, you will see an entry as follows:

[http]
       proxy = http://mydomain\\myusername:mypassword@myproxyserver:8080

That's it!

Ardent answered 7/2, 2013 at 11:33 Comment(5)

Interesting. I am able to get to the "Resolving deltas" portion with 100% but then it looks like the clone process just hangs. Anyone experienced that? – Rash 30/4, 2013 at 22:31

+1. And soon, you will be able to setup proxy per url! – Benedetta 10/9, 2013 at 7:1

@apoplexy can you comment on your suggested edit please so I can consider – Ardent 16/1, 2014 at 14:27

If you have @ symbol in your username or password, then you can URL encode it %40 and it will work. – Dentate 11/12, 2015 at 6:14

Instead of cat .gitconfig, you can list the config settings with git config --list – Philipps 26/2, 2018 at 12:19