This post has been published more than 12 years ago, it may
be obsolete by now.
As I’ve just lost an hour and some hairs dealing with trying to setup a Jenkins project connected to a private repository hosted on Github, I thought it’s worth a quick blog post. I’m using Ubuntu.
So first su as the jenkins user to create some SSH keypair:
$ ssh-keygen -p
Notice the -p option; this will allow to avoid asking for a passphrase (which Jenkins cannot so running as a daemon).
Try to ssh on github:
$ ssh -T git@github.com
The authenticity of host 'github.com (207.97.227.239)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 16:27:ac:a5:76:28:2d:36:63:1b:56:4d:eb:df:a6:48.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Hi username/reponame! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access.
Notice that you’re asked to allow github’s hostname to be added to your known_hosts file: without completing this step, you’re doomed.
Now, in the Jenkins project configuration interface, set the private repository url using the git protocol, eg. git@github.com:username/reponame.git.
That’s it, Jenkins will be able to clone and use your private repo.
If you know a better way, I’m all ears.