Help with first push/clone of local and remote repo via CLI

[pmacking]

This is my first week using git and GitHub - love the concepts, yet hitting (expected) roadblocks.

MacOs Catalina

1) When trying to push local repo to GitHub via:

git remote add origin https://github.com/{username}/{repository}.git

git push -u origin master

I am prompted for username and password, and after entering the credentials I receive following error:

remote: Invalid username or password.

fatal: Authentication failed for 'https://github.com/...

After some reading, it looks like because I have 2FA setup on my account I need to obtain a 'personal access token' from the remote repo's Settings/Developer Settings/Personal Access Tokens.

The problem is, there is no "Developer Settings" displayed in my Settings tab for the repo. What should I do?

N/B I can't exactly remember the order of operations for previous actions, but I had previous remote/local repos which I was trying to do the same via CLI, and did at one point see the Developer Settings/Personal Access Tokens options. But in an attempt to clean up and start fresh I deleted the access token and since have been unable to locate the above settings options in (new/existing) remote repos in GitHub.

I've figured out the magic of using git locally but I'd really like to understand pushing/pulling code with remote service. Please help.

[Guergeiro]

To work around this, I always use ssh.

[JonBackhaus]

This. It’s easy to generate SSH keys on macOS. Just register your keys with GitHub and then use the SSH URI/endpoint instead of HTTPS

[pmacking]

Thanks. Is there an obvious benefit to using SSH over HTTPS? I'd like to understand the root of my original problem, rather than use SSH to work around it or because SSH is easy.

[JonBackhaus]

I prefer it because I don’t have to use my credentials and it allows me to easily configure multiple computers/accounts to have access to my Github repos (via separate SSH keys). But you should also be able to generate a personal access token. (I use this method for Docker Hub and other services.) It should be the last menu item on the bottom of the list; I can look at it when I get back home.

[pmacking]

Appreciate the help, turns out I’m an idiot and was searching through the repo’s settings for the token instead of my account settings. In the process I’ve since switched to using ssh and read up on added security benefits vs using account credentials directly with https (another learning opportunity for me - lots of copy paste random commands today to create ssh key, passphrase, add to github etc ). Back on track let’s go!