How to use Git credential store on WSL (Ubuntu on Windows)?

Asked 28/8, 2017 at 19:18 Answered 13/11, 2023 at 13:35

121

I've tried following these instructions: https://mcmap.net/q/13474/-error-when-using-git-credential-helper-with-gnome-keyring-as-sudo which basically do this:

sudo apt-get install libsecret-1-0 libsecret-1-dev
cd /usr/share/doc/git/contrib/credential/libsecret
sudo make
git config --global credential.helper /usr/share/doc/git/contrib/credential/libsecret/git-credential-libsecret

But when I do any network operation, I get this error:

** (process:7902): CRITICAL **: could not connect to Secret Service: Cannot autolaunch D-Bus without X11 $DISPLAY

That's logical I guess as there is indeed no X11 display.

How to make Git credentials caching work on Ubuntu on Windows (WSL)?

Jorry answered 28/8, 2017 at 19:18 Comment(4)

Helpful tutorial: edwardthomson.com/blog/… – Veldaveleda 14/3, 2020 at 1:40

Microsoft has an official tutorial on this: learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/tutorials/wsl-git – Corncrib 8/1, 2023 at 18:33

The Microsoft tutorial uses "git-credential-manager-core.exe" instead of "git-credential-manager.exe". Which means you will be getting a warning that there was a rename ( aka.ms/gcm/rename ). I fixed this warning by using "git-credential-manager.exe" instead. – Corncrib 8/1, 2023 at 18:50

The microsoft tutorial has been updated for git >= v2.39.0 too now. – Turgent 14/7, 2023 at 11:34

214

If you installed Git for Windows there is a windows integrated credential manager installed on your system.

You can run windows executables from WSL as found here.

To use it you can run the following command (assuming that your git for windows is installed on C:\Program Files\Git, and is version < v2.36.1)

git config --global credential.helper "/mnt/c/Program\ Files/Git/mingw64/bin/git-credential-manager.exe"

For the latest paths, see the Microsoft tutorial: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/tutorials/wsl-git

Sundried answered 17/11, 2017 at 12:4 Comment(16)

This is about Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), not MSysGit. You can't install Git for Windows inside of the WSL. – Volz 20/11, 2017 at 18:15

Ok, you can´t install, but you can use the windows executables from WSL, so you can use the credential helper from git for windows on git running on WSL. This configuration is copied from my own machine. – Sundried 22/11, 2017 at 12:36

git config --global credential.helper "/mnt/c/Program\ Files/Git/mingw64/libexec/git-core/git-credential-wincred.exe" This is the command I use. If you have a path with a space you need to escape it and also put it in quotes. – Panache 22/11, 2017 at 19:54

I had to install the Creators Update for Windows before this worked for me. I also had to use this exact string in my .gitconfig: "/mnt/c/Program\\ Files\\ \$x86\$/Git/mingw32/libexec/git-core/git-credential-wincred.exe" – Volz 8/12, 2017 at 18:40

This has been so useful. Now I don't need both Git Bash and WSL Bash open to work on a repo. One question, what is the difference between git-credential-wincred.exe and git-credential-manager.exe? – Waggish 18/2, 2019 at 19:20

git-credential-wincred.exe is an older implementation, it will be better to use git-credential-manager.exe today. – Sundried 21/2, 2019 at 18:36

@CarlosBeppler Is there an explanation of the difference anywhere? – Ballance 15/4, 2020 at 14:22

git-credential-manager is implemented by Microsoft in a separate repository. In that repository there are the following message: "The Git Credential Manager for Windows (GCM) provides secure Git credential storage for Windows. It's the successor to the Windows Credential Store for Git (git-credential-winstore), which is no longer maintained. " – Sundried 16/4, 2020 at 13:41

Actually you don't even need to have git installed on Windows. You may just as well unzip the archive (found here) anywhere on your linux distribution, give *.exe files executable permissions and then set credential.helper config value accordingly (as shown in this answer). Note: .NET Framework 4.5.1 or greater is required. – Umbrian 19/7, 2020 at 13:44

Don't need to use Windows git for WSL – Zarf 2/4, 2021 at 22:49

Yes, you do not need, but the credential manager of Windows git can be integrated with The WSL git, só you do not need to replicate your credentials. – Sundried 3/4, 2021 at 23:3

I think this should be git-credential-manager-core, as git-credential-manager has been deprecated, according to Microsoft – Prudhoe 13/5, 2021 at 6:26

Yes, thanks, I'll update the instructions. – Sundried 14/5, 2021 at 11:27

The path is again updated in the current version 2.36.1 of "Git for Windows": git config --global credential.helper "/mnt/c/Program\ Files/Git/mingw64/bin/git-credential-manager-core.exe" – Sharleensharlene 22/5, 2022 at 12:13

@UmarGhouse, I think there might be a mix-up of news here, it's my understanding that "git-credential-manager-core" is actually the one being deprecated just in name ( aka.ms/gcm/rename ). If you go to the Windows folder for the git credential manager, you can see there's two credential manager executables (one with the *-core.exe and the other without). The versioning seems the same between both. So it's my understanding that they are still keeping the "core.exe" version for backwards compatibility only. – Corncrib 8/1, 2023 at 18:54

Thanks for the help @Esteban, I'll update the information according to the new docs. – Sundried 10/1, 2023 at 1:22

TL;DR

I've created a script that does this for you. I use it with my Chef orchestration.

Locate or install git-credential-manager.exe

Open cmd.exe and call where git-credential-manager.exe
- If it returns a path, GREAT. Move on to converting the path.
- If not...
In cmd.exe call where git.exe
- If it does not return a path, the next step is to install the Credential Manager alone
- If it does return a path, it will be something like:
- C:\Program Files\Git\cmd\git.exe
- Let's drop the everything after the next to last slash and change it like so:
- C:\Program Files\Git\mingw64\libexec\git-core\git-credential-manager.exe
- If that exists, GREAT. Move on to converting the path.
- Otherwise...
Install Credential Manager from Microsoft's git repo, and then use where again to get the path.

Convert the path from DOS to Linux

We need to:

Replace the C:\ with /mnt/c/
Flip the slashes from \ to /
Escape spaces (and parenthesis if there are any) with double backslashes \\

So...

"C:\Program Files\Git\mingw64\libexec\git-core\git-credential-manager.exe" becomes...
"/mnt/c/Program\\ Files/Git/mingw64/libexec/git-core/git-credential-manager.exe"

My script above has a function for doing just that

dos_path_to_linux(){
    sed -e 's?\\?/?g' -e' s?[cC]:?/mnt/c?' <<<"$1"
}

But, as @12345ieee has since commented, a wslpath utility has been added to WSL build 17046. It's worth checking out, but I don't have access to Windows at this time to verify. (Note that even though a usage statement is given in the release notes in my link, it seems that the command doesn't currently include a usage statement, -h, etc.)

Configure git

In bash call git config --global credential.helper "<converted/path>"

Rabbinical answered 3/8, 2018 at 9:23 Comment(8)

The script didn't work for me -- but doing the steps manually still did, so +1. – Imelda 8/11, 2018 at 16:37

Quick point of clarity if "use Git credential store on WSL (Ubuntu on windows)" indicates 'within' to anyone instead of 'upon': this works unless you are using a linux installation of git and ~/.gitconfig within Ubuntu where you can just do git config credential.helper store or better yet use git-credential-libsecret instead. – Overeat 24/8, 2019 at 2:36

git config --global credential.helper "/mnt/c/Program\\ Files/Git/mingw64/libexec/git-core/git-credential-manager.exe" – Tephra 13/12, 2019 at 23:47

Since recent versions of WSL, there is a wslpath utility on the linux side that can convert paths automatically, call wslpath path\to\convert from the WSL shell and it'll make the conversion for you. – Topside 26/2, 2020 at 10:48

Thanks for the feedback @12345ieee! I have added that to my answer. – Rabbinical 27/2, 2020 at 0:44

Ubuntu-specific solution by @scott-wade should be the correct answer here. Running the Windows exe from within WSL makes no sense if git is being run in the Ubuntu instance. – Deodand 31/5, 2020 at 22:15

Running the Windows credential manager from WSL makes perfect sense. As the new GCM core (git-credential-manager-core.exe?) actually supports multi-factor auth on 3 major Git providers and the user is likely already logged in on the Windows provider. Something libsecret won't help you with. – Chemotherapy 20/1, 2021 at 4:55

This helped a lot but you should find the full path of git-credential-store in Windows since if you go without a custom install of git the paths will not be those ones. mine is located under /appdata/local/Programs – Stinger 1/2 at 17:0

Using Windows 10 and "WSL", I created a ~/.gitconfig file, but had mistyped the [credential] section label as [credentials]. I tried running git credential fill and then feeding its output to git credential approve, which might have worked, but I suspect not since it said "usage: git credential [fill|approve|reject]". Finally, I simply ran:

$ git config --global credential.helper cache

and then did a git pull; when prompted for user and password I typed them as usual. After that, it remembered it. I found it had added the (correctly named) section to my ~/.gitconfig:

[credential]
        helper = cache

I edited that to provide a much longer timeout:

[credential]
        helper = cache --timeout=144000

And it all seems to be working nicely now.

Alleluia answered 5/2, 2018 at 14:32 Comment(3)

This worked out nicely for me. Thanks for a great tip and have a +1 from me! – Rabelais 23/8, 2018 at 22:57

Perfect and simple solution for me, this timeout are in seconds? – Unessential 22/7, 2019 at 19:35

Worked perfectly with VsCode + WSL2 under Windows 10. Thanks! – Spermatozoon 20/7, 2020 at 9:3

alias git=git.exe

Will simple use the git.exe from windows and its configurations

Soutane answered 2/8, 2020 at 10:56 Comment(5)

I struggled with a timeout when trying to run any git command to a remote repository hosted on Github. This alias eliminated the issue! – Hooey 9/4, 2021 at 12:57

This is an incredibly simple and effective solution to the problem. – Gourmandise 8/11, 2021 at 18:26

This was incredible simple and effective!!! – Cynosure 20/1, 2022 at 15:27

Works perfectly from CLI, but not from VSCode (continue asking for password) – Ametropia 5/3, 2023 at 1:26

Thank you. Works for me: VSCode + Windows 10 + WSL2 – Bend 9/8, 2023 at 9:13

All the answers are overly complicated to this point. And the git documentation does not really help, they link to reference material a lot so you need to follow 2-3 links to get the info you need!

You do not need to use Windows git.exe with WSL! Use linux git sudo apt install git-all (I think it comes pre-installed with Ubuntu).
Then you can simply follow the instructions at https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Credential-Storage.

Summary

git supports 2 methods by default. To see what methods you have installed, execute this command:

git help -a | grep credential

my result was:

   credential           Retrieve and store user credentials
   credential-cache     Helper to temporarily store passwords in memory
   credential-store     Helper to store credentials on disk

How to for cache & store:

cache

@selkieTG covers this in their answer, including for completeness...

git config --global credential.helper "cache --timeout 30000"

will cache your password/token for 30,000 seconds (8 hrs 20min)

store

git config --global credential.helper "store"

will store plain text password/token in ~/.git-credentials.

Plain Text?!! For WSL, I am absolutely OK with plain text here. I enter credentials to run my Windows machine and I enter credentials to sign into WSL2. Do I need to hide these? Not really, it is more of a convenience on my dev box.

manager-core

If you really want to use manager-core you can install it in your Ubuntu version. And then use it.

Zarf answered 2/4, 2021 at 22:44 Comment(1)

hopefully you also enter e pw for the disk encryption, otherwise your password may be exposed. Also, any malware can read it from \\wsl$ Good luck. – Urbanist 28/9, 2021 at 20:45

Consider Microsoft GCM v2.1.1 (May 2023), as it includes:

Better browser detection inside of WS (#1148, resolving issue 878: "for wslview: Browser authentication disabled if DISPLAY variable is not set")
Better documentation on the GCM install paths in WSL (#1168)

The installation is described here:

Start by installing the latest Git for Windows.

Inside your WSL installation, run the following command to set GCM as the Git credential helper:
git config --global credential.helper "/mnt/c/Program\ Files/Git/mingw64/bin/git-credential-manager.exe"
Note: the location of git-credential-manager.exe may be different in your installation of Git for Windows.

This is now git-credential-manager.exe, no longer git-credential-manager-core.exe (since Git 2.39.0+, Dec. 2022, and GCM v2.0.877 (Nov. 2022), PR 551).

And, as I described here, for a credential per repository:

git config --global credential.UseHttpPath true

As noted by Loligans in the comments, regarding the location of that executable:

If you don't know where your git executable location is and you are able to execute git on the command line then you can use the following command: git --exec-path which will give you the git executable location.
This should help narrow down your search

(Although I had a different opinion in 2017)
(I mentioned --exec-path here)

Tedi answered 8/5, 2023 at 18:23 Comment(2)

If you don't know where your git executable location is and you are able to execute git on the command line then you can use the following command: git --exec-path which will give you the git executable location. This should help narrow down your search – Inexactitude 12/6, 2023 at 3:6

This is a great answer. Thank you. Super easy to setup. – Salk 12/9, 2023 at 23:8

It's already documented on vscode-docs:

Sharing Git credentials between Windows and WSL

If you use HTTPS to clone your repositories and have a credential helper configured in Windows, you can share this with WSL so that passwords you enter are persisted on both sides. (Note that this does not apply to using SSH keys.)

Just follow these steps:

Configure the credential manager on Windows by running the following in a Windows command prompt or PowerShell:
```
 git config --global credential.helper wincred
```
Configure WSL to use the same credential helper, but running the following in a WSL terminal (assuming you have git >= v2.39.0):
```
 git config --global credential.helper "/mnt/c/Program\ Files/Git/mingw64/bin/git-credential-manager.exe"
```

To know the path for previous versions of git, please refer to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/tutorials/wsl-git

Any password you enter when working with Git on the Windows side will now be available to WSL and vice versa.

Source: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-docs/blob/vnext/docs/remote/troubleshooting.md#sharing-git-credentials-between-windows-and-wsl

Ametropia answered 7/3, 2023 at 0:23 Comment(1)

Note that the WSL side is now called just "git-credential-manager.exe". See aka.ms/gcm/rename – Ethnography 3/7, 2023 at 4:59

I have just recently updated to WSL2 and in my case the following wasn't working:

"/mnt/c/Program\\ Files/Git/mingw64/libexec/git-core/git-credential-manager.exe"

What worked was the following: git config --global credential.helper "/c/Program\\ Files/Git/mingw64/libexec/git-core/git-credential-manager.exe"

Until I've removed /mnt/ from the path I was getting a "not found" error.

From what I've investigated there's an issue with mounting windows drives in WSL2 after a clean Windows startup, more details here: https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4122 And that was the most probable cause in my case.

Another reason for this can be a misconfiguration of root directory in /etc/wsl.conf

Moldy answered 3/6, 2020 at 8:33 Comment(1)

This answer only works for git < v2.36.1 – Turgent 14/7, 2023 at 11:33

Download: (gcmcore-linux_amd64.2.0.567.18224.deb) https://github.com/GitCredentialManager/git-credential-manager/releases/tag/v2.0.567

Install:

sudo apt install gcmcore -y or 

sudo dpkg -i <path-to-package.deb>   (gcmcore-linux_amd64.2.0.567.18224.deb)

Configure:

export DOTNET_SYSTEM_GLOBALIZATION_INVARIANT=1   

git-credential-manager-core configure

Boarish answered 19/11, 2021 at 15:8 Comment(0)

Install git on wsl Ubuntu

sudo apt install git

Set email and username

git config --global user.email "YOUR_EMAIL"
git config --global user.name "YOUR_USERNAME"

Install Git credentials manager

wget "https://github.com/GitCredentialManager/git-credential-manager/releases/download/v2.0.886/gcm-linux_amd64.2.0.886.deb" -O /tmp/gcmcore.deb
sudo dpkg -i /tmp/gcmcore.deb
git-credential-manager configure

Set credentials manager to read from cache

git config --global credential.credentialStore cache

Laevogyrate answered 3/3, 2023 at 19:17 Comment(0)

To use Git credential store on WSL (Ubuntu on Windows), you can follow these steps:

Configure the Windows Git credential helper by running the following command:

git config --global credential.helper "/mnt/c/Program\ Files/Git/mingw64/bin/git-credential-manager.exe"

Ensure that the HttpPath is used to prevent the error message "fatal: Cannot determine the organization name for this 'dev.azure.com' remote URL." You can do this by running the following command:

git config --global credential.useHttpPath true

By following these steps, you should be able to use the Git credential store on WSL (Ubuntu on Windows) successfully.

Gorse answered 10/7, 2023 at 22:2 Comment(0)

I just bring over my .gitconfig from C:/Users/[Myself]/.gitconfig (Windows) to the git config file in Debian (WSL) which is located at ~/.gitconfig.

You can also open both in the respective operating systems by using git config --global --edit as a command.

You could do some fancy linking of the files but what I do is just the simple and easy copying of the contents from my Windows system into my Linux system.

Both should end up looking at least like the following:

[user]
    name = YourName
    email = [email protected]

Lentigo answered 3/8, 2023 at 12:48 Comment(0)

This tutorial from Microsoft helped me. Basicly says:

If GIT installed is >= v2.39.0

git config --global credential.helper "/mnt/c/Program\ Files/Git/mingw64/bin/git-credential-manager.exe"

else if GIT installed is >= v2.36.1

git config --global credential.helper "/mnt/c/Program\ Files/Git/mingw64/libexec/git-core/git-credential-manager.exe"

else if version is < v2.36.1

git config --global credential.helper "/mnt/c/Program\ Files/Git/mingw64/bin/git-credential-manager-core.exe"

Noblewoman answered 13/11, 2023 at 13:35 Comment(0)

-1

Couldn't get this working with git-credential-manager.exe on WSL2 with Debian. I'd always get remote: Repository not found. with no further error.
Instead I did the same with git-credential-manager-core.exe so my config is now credential.helper=/mnt/c/Program\ Files/Git/mingw64/libexec/git-core/git-credential-manager-core.exe. This worked right away, with GitHub 2FA/PAT set up on Windows before hand.

I have the following git versions:

Windows:
git version 2.31.0.windows.1
Git Credential Manager for Windows v1.20.0.0
Debian/WSL2
git version 2.30.2

Stalemate answered 24/3, 2021 at 10:56 Comment(0)

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