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Private Git repositories

Access to private Git repositories can be managed from the Credentials section, accessible on the right top menu, under Manage credentials.

Tower provides support to connect to private repositories from the popular Git hosting platforms GitHub, GitLab, and BitBucket.

Note

All credentials are securely stored using advanced encryption (AES-256) and never exposed by any Tower API.

GitHub#

To connect a private GitHub repository you need to enter a Name for the credentials, a Username and a Password or Access token.

It is recommended to use an access token instead of a using your password. Personal access tokens (PATs) are an alternative to using passwords for authentication to GitHub when using APIs. Step-by-step instructions to create a personal access token can be found here.

GitLab#

To connect a private GitLab repository you need to enter a Name for the credentials, a Username and a Password or Access token.

A GitLab API access token that can be found in your GitLab account page. Make sure to select the api, read_api, and read_repository options.

Bitbucket#

To connect a private BitBucket repository you need to enter a Name for the credentials, a Username and a BitBucket App password.

This step-by-step example shows how to create a BitBucket App password.

Self-hosted Git#

It is also possible to specify Git server endpoints for private hosting.

These can be specified in a file tower.yaml and must be accessible from the backend and cron container instances.

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tower:
  scm:
    providers:
      my_org_bitbucket:
        server: "https://bitbucket.my-org.com"
        endpoint: "<API endpoint if different from the above>"
        platform: bitbucketserver
        user: some_user_name
        password: password_or_access_token

Tip

For more details on this configuration, see the Nextflow SCM configuration file for examples. You can first test your connection with a Nextflow execution using the standard SCM file and then convert it to the YAML structure, as shown above, for Tower.