Steps to Accept a Self-Signed Certificate

• Identify the Certificate: Obtain the self-signed certificate from your Git server. This can usually be exported from the server or provided by your IT department.
• Install the Certificate: The certificate needs to be installed on your local machine to be recognized as trusted.
• Configure Git to Trust the Certificate: Modify Git’s configuration to accept the self-signed certificate.

Step 1: Obtain the Certificate

First, you need to get the self-signed certificate. This file is typically a .crt or .pem file. If you’re accessing a server via a web browser, you can often download the certificate from the browser’s security settings when accessing the site.

Step 2: Install the Certificate

For different operating systems, the installation process can vary:

On Linux:

1. Copy the certificate to a trusted directory, such as /usr/local/share/ca-certificates/:

sudo cp your-cert.crt /usr/local/share/ca-certificates/

2. Update the CA certificates:

sudo update-ca-certificates

On macOS:

Add the certificate to the System keychain and mark it as trusted for SSL:

sudo security add-trusted-cert -d -r trustRoot -k /Library/Keychains/System.keychain /path/to/your-cert.crt

On Windows:

1. Open the certificate file by double-clicking it.
2. Click on “Install Certificate”.
3. Choose “Local Machine” and proceed.
4. Place the certificate in the “Trusted Root Certification Authorities” store.

Step 3: Configure Git

Tell Git to use the self-signed certificate by configuring the HTTP SSL backend:

1. Global Configuration:

Configure Git globally to use the certificate:

git config --global http.sslCAInfo /path/to/your-cert.crt

Alternatively, you can disable SSL verification altogether (not recommended for security reasons):

git config --global http.sslVerify false

2. Per-Repository Configuration:

If you want to apply the configuration to a specific repository, navigate to the repository directory and run:

git config http.sslCAInfo /path/to/your-cert.crt

3. Environment Variable:

You can also set the environment variable GIT_SSL_NO_VERIFY to true to bypass SSL verification (not recommended):

export GIT_SSL_NO_VERIFY=true

Verification

To ensure the configuration works, try cloning or pulling from the repository:

git clone https://your-git-server/repository.git

If everything is set up correctly, Git should accept the self-signed certificate and proceed with the operation without SSL verification errors.

Using Git in a secure environment often requires dealing with SSL certificates. When a self-signed certificate is used, Git might reject the connection due to the certificate’s untrusted nature. This can create a problem when accessing repositories over HTTPS. However, you can configure Git to accept self-signed certificates by following a few steps.

In this article, we will guide you in making git accept a self-signed certificate.