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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-11T16:56:34+00:00

I’m trying to do a simple git clone https://github.com/org/project.git on a CentOS box but

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I’m trying to do a simple git clone https://github.com/org/project.git on a CentOS box but get:

error: The requested URL returned error: 401 while accessing
https://github.com/org/project.git/info/refs

fatal: HTTP request failed

It never prompts me for my username/password, just fails.

I can make the exact same call on my Mac no problem- what am I missing?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The answer was simple but not obvious:

    Instead of:

    git clone https://github.com/org/project.git

    do:

    git clone https://username@github.com/org/project.git

    or (insecure)

    git clone https://username:password@github.com/org/project.git

    (Note that in the later case, your password will may be visible by other users on your machine by running ps u -u $you and will appear cleartext in your shell’s history by default)

    All 3 ways work on my Mac, but only the last 2 worked on the remote Linux box. (Thinking back on this, it’s probably because I had a global git username set up on my Mac, whereas on the remote box I did not? That might have been the case, but the lack of prompt for a username tripped me up… )

    Haven’t seen this documented anywhere, so here it is.

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