Multi-Forge Remote Configuration

Configured GitLab and Gitea remotes for enterprise-linux-8021x repo, troubleshooting OAuth expiration and ssh-add issues.

Overview

Field Value

Date

2026-02-26

Duration

~1 hour

Systems

GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, SSH agent

Type

Configuration

Outcome

Success

Raw Log

attachments/sessions/2026-02-26-enterprise-linux-gitremotes-config.log

Objective

Add GitLab and Gitea remotes to an existing GitHub repo (enterprise-linux-8021x) following the multi-forge workflow documented in the runbooks.

Environment

# Starting state - only GitHub remote
$ git remote -v
origin	git@github.com:EvanusModestus/enterprise-linux-802.1x.git (fetch)
origin	git@github.com:EvanusModestus/enterprise-linux-802.1x.git (push)

Session Log

Phase 1: Get Repo Name from GitHub

$ REPO_NAME=$(gh repo view --json name -q '.name')
$ echo $REPO_NAME
enterprise-linux-802.1x
Analysis

Used gh CLI to extract repo name programmatically for variable substitution.

Phase 2: Add Remotes

$ git remote add gitlab git@gitlab.com:EvanusModestus/${REPO_NAME}.git
$ git remote add gitea git@gitea:evanusmodestus/${REPO_NAME}.git

$ git remote -v
gitea   git@gitea:evanusmodestus/enterprise-linux-802.1x.git (fetch)
gitea   git@gitea:evanusmodestus/enterprise-linux-802.1x.git (push)
gitlab  git@gitlab.com:EvanusModestus/enterprise-linux-802.1x.git (fetch)
gitlab  git@gitlab.com:EvanusModestus/enterprise-linux-802.1x.git (push)
origin  git@github.com:EvanusModestus/enterprise-linux-802.1x.git (fetch)
origin  git@github.com:EvanusModestus/enterprise-linux-802.1x.git (push)

Phase 3: Create Repos on Forges

Gitea (Success):

$ tea repo create --name ${REPO_NAME} --private
# Created successfully

GitLab (OAuth Error):

$ glab repo create ${REPO_NAME} --private

ERROR: oauth2: "invalid_grant" "The provided authorization grant is invalid, expired..."

Phase 4: Fix glab OAuth

# Clear stale config
$ rm -rf ~/.config/glab-cli

# Re-authenticate
$ glab auth login
# Generated new PAT at GitLab with api + write_repository scopes
# Selected SSH as default protocol

# Retry - success
$ glab repo create ${REPO_NAME} --private
✓ Created project on GitLab: EvanusModestus / enterprise-linux-802.1x

Phase 5: Push to GitLab (SSH Key Issue)

$ git push gitlab main
Enter passphrase for key '/home/evanusmodestus/.ssh/id_ed25519_gitlab':
# Hangs after entering passphrase - no response

Diagnosis:

$ ssh-add -l
# GitLab key not listed - only github and vault keys loaded

$ ssh-keygen -y -f ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_gitlab
# Works - key and passphrase are valid

Fix - Explicit SSH_AUTH_SOCK:

$ SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/run/user/1000/ssh-agent.socket ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_gitlab
Identity added: /home/evanusmodestus/.ssh/id_ed25519_gitlab (gitlab-arch-2026)

Phase 6: Push to All Forges

$ git push gitlab main
Enumerating objects: 88, done.
To gitlab.com:EvanusModestus/enterprise-linux-802.1x.git
 * [new branch]      main -> main

$ SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/run/user/1000/ssh-agent.socket ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_gitea
Identity added: /home/evanusmodestus/.ssh/id_ed25519_gitea (gitea-arch-2026)

$ git push gitea main
To gitea:evanusmodestus/enterprise-linux-802.1x.git
 * [new branch]      main -> main

# Verify all synced
$ git remote | xargs -I {} git push {} main
Everything up-to-date
Everything up-to-date
Everything up-to-date

Root Cause

  1. glab OAuth expired - Stored OAuth token in ~/.config/glab-cli/config.yml was no longer valid

  2. ssh-add hanging - Default SSH_AUTH_SOCK wasn’t pointing to active agent; explicit socket path required

Resolution

  1. Cleared glab config and re-authenticated with fresh PAT

  2. Used explicit SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/run/user/1000/ssh-agent.socket for ssh-add

  3. Reorganized gopass GitLab entries: v3/domains/d000/cloud/gitlab/evanusmodestus/{pat,ui,ui-otp}

Verification

$ git remote -v
gitea   git@gitea:evanusmodestus/enterprise-linux-802.1x.git
gitlab  git@gitlab.com:EvanusModestus/enterprise-linux-802.1x.git
origin  git@github.com:EvanusModestus/enterprise-linux-802.1x.git

$ git remote | xargs -I {} git push {} main
Everything up-to-date (all 3)

Key Learnings

  1. ssh-add hanging fix - Use SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/run/user/1000/ssh-agent.socket ssh-add when passphrase entry hangs

  2. glab OAuth recovery - Delete ~/.config/glab-cli/ and run glab auth login with fresh PAT

  3. Per-forge SSH keys - Keep separate keys (id_ed25519_github, id_ed25519_gitlab, id_ed25519_gitea) for isolation

  4. Variable extraction - REPO_NAME=$(gh repo view --json name -q '.name') for consistent multi-forge setup

Follow-up Tasks

  • Update git-repo-operations.adoc with troubleshooting section

  • Update runbooks with tea CLI commands

  • Reorganize gopass gitlab entries

  • Consider adding SSH key auto-load to shell profile

Related