Git's famous "ERROR: Permission to .git denied to user"

Question

I have tried googling and read through https://help.github.com/en/articles/connecting-to-github-with-ssh and various, various guides. I am unable to git push -u origin master or git push origin master ( the same command ).

I've had my git account for at least 2 or so years. I've successfully been able to create repos and push -u origin master fine on my laptop but on this desktop I'm having issues.

Here's what I tried:

1. I have setup my git user name

2. I have setup my git user email

3. I have uploaded the contents of my /home/meder/.ssh/id_rsa.pub to github's account page. I have verified I did not paste any whitespace

4. I have created a ~/.ssh/config with these contents:

  Host github.com
  User git
  Hostname github.com
  PreferredAuthentications publickey
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

I have chmodded the .ssh to 700, id_rsa 600

5. I have added the proper remote origin without making typos : git remote add origin git@github.com:medero/cho.git

6. To confirm #5, here is my .git/config. The directory is correct and not another directory:

[remote "origin"]
        fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
        url = git@github.com:medero/cho.git

7. ssh git@github.com -v gives me a successful Authentication

8. One weird thing is, the username which it greets me with has t appended to it. My github username is medero, not medert.

Hi mederot! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access.

9. I am not behind a proxy or firewall

10. The key is offered, heres the output from -v:

debug1: Host 'github.com' is known and matches the RSA host key.
debug1: Found key in /home/meder/.ssh/known_hosts:58
debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Offering public key: /home/meder/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: Remote: Forced command: gerve mederot
debug1: Remote: Port forwarding disabled.
debug1: Remote: X11 forwarding disabled.
debug1: Remote: Agent forwarding disabled.
debug1: Remote: Pty allocation disabled.
debug1: Server accepts key: { some stuff, dont know if i should share it

debug1: Remote: Forced command: gerve mederot
debug1: Remote: Port forwarding disabled.
debug1: Remote: X11 forwarding disabled.
debug1: Remote: Agent forwarding disabled.
debug1: Remote: Pty allocation disabled.
debug1: Authentication succeeded (publickey).

11. Here are the commands I used

mkdir cho
git init
touch README
git add README
git commit -m 'test'
git remote add origin git@github.com:medero/cho.git
git push -u origin master

12. I don't want to create a new SSH key.

13. If I git clone using ssh and make an edit, commit, and git push, I get the same exact thing.

14. Here's the actual error:

$ git push
ERROR: Permission to medero/cho.git denied to mederot.
fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

15. I have setup my github username and github token:

$ git config --global github.user medero $ git config --global github.token 0123456789yourf0123456789tokenSets the GitHub token for all git instances on the system

16. I have confirmed my github username is NOT mederot and my github token IS CORRECT per my account page ( validated first 2 chars and last 2 chars ).

17. To confirm #16, ~/.gitconfig contains

[github]
    token = mytoken...
    user = medero

18. I did ssh-key add ~/.ssh/id_rsa if that's even necessary...

THEORIES:

I suspect there's something fishy because when I get ssh authenticated, the user greeting is mederot and not medero, which is my acct. Could something in my github account possibly be incorrectly cached?

I also suspect some local ssh caching weirdness because if i mv ~/.ssh/id_rsa KAKA and mv ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub POOPOO, and do ssh git@github.com -v, it still Authenticates me and says it serves my /home/meder/.ssh/id_rsa when I renamed it?! It has to be cached?!

I am using "Github for Windows" and had similar issue when switched between two Github accounts. Here's my solution: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18565876/cannot-access-remote-git-repository/31010578#31010578 — Alisa, Jun 23 '15 at 18:26
If you are looking to push from 2 different local repos to their corresponding origin remote repo then check this: https://stackoverflow.com/q/63291726/12033855 — an4s911, Aug 06 '20 at 22:21

score 190 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 18 '18 at 19:13

190

After Googling for few days, I found this is the only question similar to my situation.

However, I just solved the problem! So I am putting my answer here to help anyone else searching for this issue.

Here is what I did:

Open "Keychain Access.app" (You can find it in Spotlight or LaunchPad)
Select "All items" in Category
Search "git"
Delete every old & strange item
Try to Push again and it just WORKED

edited Jan 18 '18 at 19:13

thesquaregroot

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answered Jun 23 '15 at 14:07

Alice Chan

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Thumbs up buddy. You're a hero. – Prince Bansal Nov 26 '15 at 02:06
Glad I decided to google this instead of following the lack of detail on github's support page – ivandov Jul 12 '16 at 02:37
Thanks,I ended up here and removing SourceTree account. – Mohammad Zaid Pathan Nov 25 '16 at 11:30
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Hell yes, finally, after struggling with countless SSH keys, this is the answer that worked! Seems that Mac and https access uses the Keychain. Crazy. – Patrick Chu Nov 27 '16 at 19:30
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BLESS YOU IVE BEEN TRYING TO SOLVE THIS FOR WEEKS – Jon Hendershot Apr 21 '17 at 02:13
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Looks very helpful, but unclear what is `old & strange`. Am I about to mess a load of stuff up..? – geotheory Sep 11 '17 at 16:20
Step 4 for me was just changing the user and password at github.com. – mc_kaiser Oct 12 '17 at 18:00
this is really working well. I will share this answer in my blog post later. – Zumry Mohamed Oct 29 '17 at 15:36
I was so stuck with the accepted answer above until I read yours. – Pho Huynh Nov 18 '17 at 14:36
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@geotheory The `old & strange` things means the old date items and incorrect email or username. You can sort the table by `Date Modified`. – Alice Chan Nov 22 '17 at 10:10
This also fixes an issue with SoureTree, where the app uses old user names to commit changes – altabq Apr 06 '18 at 08:41

score 119 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 01 '16 at 09:38

119

If problem is coming on windows then remove the Credentials from the Windows history.

Go to Credential Manager
Go to Windows Credentials
Delete the entries under Generic Credentials
Try connecting again.This time , it should prompt you for the correct username and password.

remove credentials from git

answered Dec 01 '16 at 09:38

FAHID

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Perfect. I was getting 403 accessing with an account that I don't use anymore. Now solved. – Anton Epikhin Jan 20 '17 at 02:30
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only deleting the github.com credentials was sufficient for me – Bart De Boeck Apr 08 '17 at 01:37
And there you can change your username and anything. That is the way. – WesternGun Jan 14 '18 at 22:43
Actually this worked for me as well but what would I do if I had 2 different accounts? – an4s911 Aug 06 '20 at 21:25
This is perfect answer. Thanks – Bijay Yadav Nov 08 '20 at 06:01
This perfectly worked for me thanks a lot! – Chandresh Dec 24 '20 at 14:57
this action solved my issue in windows – Avinash Khadsan Feb 19 '22 at 09:46

score 37 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 22 '13 at 11:09

37

In step 18, I assume you mean ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa? If so, that explains this:

I also suspect some local ssh caching weirdness because if i mv ~/.ssh/id_rsa KAKA and mv ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub POOPOO, and do ssh git@github.com -v, it still Authenticates me and says it serves my /home/meder/.ssh/id_rsa when I renamed it?! It has to be cached?!

... since the ssh-agent is caching your key.

If you look on GitHub, there is a mederot account. Are you sure that this is nothing to do with you? GitHub shouldn't allow the same SSH public key to be added to two accounts, since when you are using the git@github.com:... URLs it's identifying the user based on the SSH key. (That this shouldn't be allowed is confirmed here.)

So, I suspect (in decreasing order of likelihood) that one of the following is the case:

You created the mederot account previously and added your SSH key to it.
Someone else has obtained a copy of your public key and added it to the mederot GitHub account.
There's a horrible bug in GitHub.

If 1 isn't the case then I would report this to GitHub, so they can check about 2 or 3.

More :

ssh-add -l check if there is more than one identify exists if yes, remove it by ssh-add -d "that key file"

edited Mar 22 '13 at 11:09

TheOneTeam

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answered Mar 17 '11 at 06:19

Mark Longair

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Great help Mark! This fixed it for me as well. – Leachy Peachy Nov 29 '11 at 17:56
This was it. You saved me a huge headache. Now I just have to remember to run `ssh-add ...` every time I want to switch my github/ssh logins. – Cerin Nov 04 '12 at 05:08
For some reason `ssh-add -d ` doesn't work. (Manually deleting tyhe files did.) The caching you mentioned must be manually reloaded somehow. How? – not2qubit May 19 '17 at 12:10
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`ssh-add -d` -> "Could not open a connection to your authentication agent." – alex Sep 30 '19 at 16:14
The `ssh-add` was the bit that did it for me. Thanks! – rayryeng Apr 05 '20 at 03:58
In Ubuntu, I first need to remove `Secure Shell/OpenSSH keys` in `Passwords and Keys`. That also deletes the key in ~/.ssh... so may be some backup needed. Then `ssh-add ` and `ssh-add -d` work as expected. – Phi Quang Phuoc Oct 25 '21 at 14:16
ssh-add finally made it! – Nati Kamusher Dec 25 '21 at 19:27

score 35 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 12 '17 at 04:39

35

On Mac, if you have multiple GitHub logins and are not using SSH, force the correct login by using:

git remote set-url origin https://username@github.com/username/repo-name.git

This also works if you're having issues pushing to a private repository.

answered Nov 12 '17 at 04:39

leanne

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Thanks, this worked for me. It prompted me for password and I was able to push after I provided my password. Much appreciated! – pixel Jun 12 '19 at 17:20
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... but this did not solve issue for me on Windows, only on Mac – pixel Jun 12 '19 at 19:28
... but @Fahid suggeston above to clean up credentials on Windows helped – pixel Jun 12 '19 at 19:46
You're are a hero. – Vaibhav May 04 '20 at 21:01
This is the correct answer if we multiple github projects which belongs to different accounts – Buddybear Jul 09 '20 at 20:11
This worked. Previously my url was set to the https one. When I changed to git@github.com:organization/reponame.git git push worked – Nikhil Goyal Jul 25 '20 at 15:15
this route looks like it may no longer be supported: `remote: Support for password authentication was removed on August 13, 2021. Please use a personal access token instead. remote: Please see https://github.blog/2020-12-15-token-authentication-requirements-for-git-operations/ for more information.` – jxramos Nov 30 '21 at 11:01
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Still works if you have a token, @jxramos - just enter the token text when asked for a password. See [Creating a personal access token](https://docs.github.com/en/authentication/keeping-your-account-and-data-secure/creating-a-personal-access-token) for instructions. And, [this SO question](https://stackoverflow.com/q/63906613/1107226) explains the minimum scopes needed to set up the token for push activities. – leanne Dec 01 '21 at 23:28

score 24 · Answer 5 · edited Mar 08 '15 at 09:26

24

Its due to a conflict.

Clear all keys from ssh-agent

ssh-add -d ~/.ssh/id_rsa
ssh-add -d ~/.ssh/github

Add the github ssh key

ssh-add   ~/.ssh/github

It should work now.

edited Mar 08 '15 at 09:26

Gowtham

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answered Nov 11 '11 at 19:48

Sarvesh

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also `ssh-add -D` removes all identities, can be useful if the agent gets into an invalid state. – Sam Dec 28 '13 at 17:29
ssh-add finally made it! – Nati Kamusher Dec 25 '21 at 19:28
11 years old answer but still useful :D – Thamaraiselvam Apr 19 '22 at 17:37

score 7 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 15 '17 at 14:36

I am using Mac and the issue is solved by deleting github record from keychain access app: Here is what i did:

Open "Keychain Access.app" (You can find it in Spotlight orLaunchPad)
Select "All items" in Category
Search "git"
Delete every old & strange items Try to Push again and it just WORKED

Above steps are copied from @spyar for the ease.

score 6 · Answer 7 · edited Dec 09 '21 at 14:48

I find the solution is the same as @spyar provide which is the Keychain Access app stored the old username.

There are 2 solutions for this situation:

Delete the info in Keychain Access by
- Open Keychain Access app
- Search for GitHub
- Delete corresponding credentials

Or

If you want to use ssh key. You just change your Repo url from https

https://github.com/username/repo.git

into

git@github.com:username/repo.git

score 3 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 22 '19 at 19:23

I recently ran into this issue for on old repo on my machine that had been pushed up using https. steps 5 and 6 solved my issue by re-setting the remote url for my repo from using the https url to the ssh url

checking the remote is using the https url

> git remote -v
origin  https://github.com/ExampleUser/ExampleRepo.git (fetch)
origin  https://github.com/ExampleUser/ExampleRepo.git (push)

then re-setting the origin to use the ssh url

> git remote set-url origin git@github.com:ExampleUser/ExampleRepo.git

verifying new remote

> git remote -v
origin  git@github.com:ExampleUser/ExampleRepo.git (fetch)
origin  git@github.com:ExampleUser/ExampleRepo.git (push)

could now successfully git push -u origin

i'm still not sure what setting i would have changed that might have caused the push to fail when the remote is https but this was the solution to my issue

ERROR: Permission to unrealcv/synthetic-computer-vision.git denied to monajalal. fatal: Could not read from remote repository. Please make sure you have the correct access rights and the repository exists. — Mona Jalal, Jun 11 '20 at 01:08

score 2 · Answer 9 · edited Jun 01 '13 at 12:16

2

I had the same problem as you. After a long time spent Googling, I found out my error was caused by multiple users that had added the same key in their accounts.

So, here is my solution: delete the wrong-user's ssh-key (I can do it because the wrong-user is also my account). If the wrong-user isn't your account, you may need to change your ssh-key, but I don't think this gonna happen.

And I think your problem may be caused by a mistyping error in your accounts name.

edited Jun 01 '13 at 12:16

BenC

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answered May 31 '13 at 02:27

Perth Charles

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This is the same issue on my side. After deleting wrong-user's ssh-key, if it is still not working, then do: ``` 1. go back to your "correct" account, remove and re-add your ssh key again 2. close your terminal and reopen your terminal, then push your code ``` – WUJ Mar 29 '22 at 05:57

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Jan 17 '19 at 13:28

I encountered this error when using Travis CI to deploy content, which involved pushing edits to a repository.

I eventually solved the issue by updating the GitHub personal access token associated with the Travis account with the public_repo scope access permission:

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Apr 20 '22 at 23:07

Same issue was observed when pushing to a respository:

$ git push --set-upstream origin new-operator-test
ERROR: Permission to redhat-openshift-ecosystem/redhat-marketplace-operators.git denied to cniackz.
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

What was done is making sure you clone your forked repository:

git clone git@github.com:cniackz/redhat-marketplace-operators.git
git checkout -b new-branch
<performed the changes>
git add <files>
git commit -m <files>

And it worked:

$ git push --set-upstream origin new-branch
Enumerating objects: 9, done.
Counting objects: 100% (9/9), done.
Delta compression using up to 10 threads
Compressing objects: 100% (4/4), done.
Writing objects: 100% (7/7), 643 bytes | 643.00 KiB/s, done.
Total 7 (delta 2), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
remote: Resolving deltas: 100% (2/2), completed with 2 local objects.
remote: 
remote: Create a pull request for 'new-branch' on GitHub by visiting:
remote:      https://github.com/cniackz/redhat-marketplace-operators/pull/new/new-branch
remote: 
To github.com:cniackz/redhat-marketplace-operators.git
 * [new branch]      new-branch -> new-branch
Branch 'new-branch' set up to track remote branch 'new-branch' from 'origin'.

It is suspected that to start with, it was not used the forked repository but the one from redhat and this would explain the issue since cniackz user does not have access to that repository but to forked only.

score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Jul 23 '15 at 22:09

0

This problem is also caused by:

If you are on a mac/linux, and are using 'ControlMaster' in your ~/.ssh/config, there may be some ssh control master processes running.

To find them, run:

ps aux | grep '\[mux\]'

And kill the relevant ones.

answered Jul 23 '15 at 22:09

Bash

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score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Jan 27 '18 at 06:42

I too ran into this, what caused this for me is that while cloning the repo I was pushing my changes to, I picked up the clone URL from an incognito tab without signing in. (I am still clueless on how it effects). That for some reason led to git picking another user account. When i tried it again from a proper signed in page it worked like usual for me.

score 0 · Answer 14 · answered May 07 '21 at 08:32

I also happen to come across this issue while working on my MAC So, the problem is this. I had once logged in from one of my old GitHub account. Now, I am using a different GitHub account. I solved using the below steps-

Open "Keychain Access.app"
Select "All items" in Category
Search "Github"
Open that entry,
and change the Account to new github username.

Try to Push again and it will work

Git's famous "ERROR: Permission to .git denied to user"

14 Answers14

Here is what I did:

Linked