WP Engine Git Password

What happens when you get asked for a WP Engine Git password? Their documentation says nothing about a password. Here’s all they say about connecting to their repository:

Once you save your key successfully you should be all set! The key will be effectively published in about 10 minutes.

The key is waiting those 10 minutes. If you’re like me, you tried to connect immediately. That’s when the trouble started.

WP Engine Git Password: just wait the 10 minutes

You don’t need a password. If you’re being asked for one, it probably means you did something wrong. In my case, I tried to connect too soon.

Just wait longer. If you try to connect before the 10 minutes is up, you’ll be asked for a password that doesn’t exist.

The system has to run its course and set everything up behind the scenes for you. If you jump the gun and run that ssh git@git.wpengine.com info command too soon, the party won’t be in full swing yet and you’re bound to get errors.

I read the “in about 10 minutes” bit in WP Engine’s Git Push instructions and blatantly ignored it. I jumped straight into Terminal and pasted in the info command. I had time to verify that the host RSA key was accurate and accepted it. I had time to read and re-read the git@git.wpengine.com’s password line. I had time to try every password I could think of associated with my WP Engine account. I had time to google things like “WP Engine git password” and “WPEngine git asking for password.”

I had time to read an exchange on Twitter between another weary WPE customer and a support rep. I had time to submit a support ticket with a shell transcript asking how the hell I’m supposed to get past this imaginary WP Engine git password. And, of course, I had time to tell myself “I should blog about this!” And here we are.

The good news is that when I tried the ssh command again, it went through perfectly. I suppose it’s possible WPE’s support saw my ticket and fixed the problem in those few minutes (although I haven’t gotten a response on that ticket yet and its status still says unassigned). But it’s much more likely that I just broke the rules the first time and (inadvertently) followed them the second time. Of course it worked the second time. TJ didn’t screw it up.

Update: WP Engine support responded.

I heard back from WPE’s support and, to my surprise, there are other actual potential causes for this problem. Vindication, I guess. Here are the relevant portions of WP Engine’s git password support response.

The prompt for the password is typically due to the public key on our end isn’t matching up with your local computer’s SSH key.

• ssh-keygen -lf /path/to/your/private-key: It provides your SSH key fingerprint. /path/to/your/private-key should be replaced with the actual path to the SSH private key on your system that matches the SSH public key you provided us. If the fingerprint we have for your SSH public key matches your SSH private key, then authentication to your repository will be successful.
• ssh -vv git@git.wpengine.com info: It provides verbose output of your SSH connection to git.wpengine.com which can be used to troubleshoot connection and authentication issues.

Additionally, could you ensure the current public key we have is up to date? To update/remove public keys from the install you may find it here in the user portal.

The two steps above don’t actually fix anything. I’m sure WPE would have to do that for you. But they do give you a couple ways to diagnose the problem further. In my case, the problem went away when I chilled the hell out and waited a few minutes. But, since the entire internet is one giant YMMV, if you’re still having trouble with your WPE git connectivity, try these steps and see where that gets you. Then you should probably just contact their support people anyway.