Last Updated: November 19, 2020
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· jbleuzen

Force git to clone with "https://" instead of "git://" urls

If you can't clone a repository with a "git://" url because of a proxy or firewall, here is a little git configuration that will force git to use "https://" even when you'll type "git://" URL.

git config --global url."https://".insteadOf git://

With this command, it will add the following lines in you .gitconfig :

[url "https://"]   
    insteadOf = git://

That way, you don't have to care about using "git://" or "https://" when you are cloning repo, both urls will work.
Maybe a well known tweak but discovered it lately...

Related protips:

Force a "git stash pop"

3 Responses
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You can also limit this URL rewriting to an explicit list of Git repos that are outside your firewall. This way you can still use the git:// scheme inside your LAN with your internal repos.

git config --global url."https://github.com".insteadOf git://github.com
over 1 year ago ·

@steve-jansen:
You can also use "url.instedOf" to create shortcuts:

git config --global url."https://github.com/".insteadOf github:

I can then do;

git clone github:dolmen/github-keygen.git
over 1 year ago ·

Thanks for this tip, for some reason I can't get https connections to work behind my company's proxy, so i used the opposite of this to force git:// connections. Thanks!

over 1 year ago ·