WP Engine Git Password Prompt

By Agustin June 1, 2015

While setting up my developer key for use with WP Engine’s most excellent git functionality, I managed to mess up the process due to my impatience. It gives you a prompt to wait ten minutes, which I ignored, like many others before me. I did manage to figure out how to fix it, though! So now, here is what I did:

 

Step 1: Create a special key for use with WPEngine

I like to use a different key for each server, so I made a new one to use for wpengine with this command:

ssh-keygen -H -F wpengine


Step 2: Add entry to SSH Config

First, open config file in editor of your choice, ie:

pico ~/.ssh/config

… then add this entry:

Host    git.wpengine.com
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/wpengine


Step 3: Wait Ten Minutes

Then run:

ssh git@git.wpengine.com info

You will be prompted with something like:

The authenticity of host 'git.wpengine.com (50.116.20.222)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 19:17:ee:d2:1d:8d:c9:3e:dc:3e:0d:21:a7:c6:52:fc.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'git.wpengine.com,50.116.20.222' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
Identity added: /Users/[username]/.ssh/wpengine (/Users/[username]/.ssh/wpengine)

 

Then you should get the message back saying

Hello [your-devname-goes-here]


Step 4: Do not see Hello [your-devname-goes-here], weep softly.

If you do not see this, you have probably done what I did – ignore the instructions and wait more like 1 minute before running ssh and ruined everything. Now you get asked for the password to git@wpengine.com over and over again! This is your punishment for being impatient.

This is how I fixed this: If you got prompted for a password instead of getting the nice hello message, remove the git.wpengine.com host entry using

ssh-keygen -R git.wpengine.com

You can make sure this worked by making sure you don’t see any entry for wpengine in the known_hosts

pico known_hosts

Now really wait ten minutes and run

ssh git@git.wpengine.com info

Hopefully you will be straightened out now!

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