npm install with git+ssh doesn't use existing ssh key for user

Question

I want to reference a private GitHub repo in my project. I'm trying commands like:

npm i git+ssh://[email protected]/<myusername>/<myprivaterepo>.git

However it seems to not notice that I have SSH keys already configured on my (Windows 11) system. I can happily clone the repo, but executing the above command instead prompts me to sign in to GitHub:

According to my searches online, this should work without additional authentication. For example, this article explains how to set this up - I can skip steps 2 and 3 as my SSH key already works (verified with ssh -T [email protected]), but I still get a prompt, and I don't want to add unnecessary additional access to my GitHub account where it isn't technically needed.

Does anyone know why I am getting this prompt?

William Forty · Accepted Answer · 2022-01-03 13:57:27Z

6

I figured this out myself - it's apparently a common issue in a variety of contexts, but in my search around npm related commands, I didn't find anywhere referencing this happening with npm, hence my question.

Thanks to this comment I stumbled upon, I discovered there's a setting for controlling handling credentials. You can check its value with git config credential.helper. I was blissfully ignorant that this existed as I normally use SSH key pairs from the command line.

I solved my issue by turning off the credential helper completely for git on my system, with:

git config --system --unset credential.helper

Note that this required administrative privileges to do, as the relevant config file lives in the Program Files directory (C:\Program Files\Git\etc\gitconfig).

answered Jan 3, 2022 at 13:57

William Forty

2522 silver badges6 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

szelbi Over a year ago

After that, since I use Windows, I also had to run start-ssh-agent (and not ssh-agent) to get it to work. Source: stackoverflow.com/a/63173335/5905695

hyunfei · Accepted Answer · 2022-09-16 01:29:40Z

0

The reason is the git ssh private key is not stored on the jenkins host，you need use the private key from jenkins credential,with version 2.30+ git,git support use GIT_SSH_COMMAND to set private key,the code in jenkinsfile as bellow

 stage('install') {
                withCredentials([sshUserPrivateKey(credentialsId: "keyId", keyFileVariable: 'key')]) {
                // from git 2.30+,git support use GIT_SSH_COMMAND to set private key 
                sh 'GIT_SSH_COMMAND="ssh -i $key" npm install'
                }
     }

edited Sep 16, 2022 at 1:29

answered Sep 16, 2022 at 1:28

hyunfei

1311 silver badge4 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

npm install with git+ssh doesn't use existing ssh key for user

2 Answers 2

1 Comment

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

1 Comment

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related