How to I tell Git for Windows where to find my private RSA key?

Question

My GIT setup runs fine within linux, but when I try to set things up under Windows (using git for windows and tortoisegit) I don't know where to put my private ssh key (or, better still, how to tell ssh where it's located). I'm using the standard ssh.exe option during installation of git for windows. The setup runs fine if I allow password authentication (in lieu of rsa) on the server.

Answer 1

For Git Bash

If you are running msysgit (I am assuming you are) and are looking to run Git Bash (I recommend it over TortoiseGit, but I lean to the CLI more than GUI now), you need to figure out what your home directory is for Git Bash by starting it then type pwd (On Win7, it will be something like C:\Users\phsr I think). While you're in git bash, you should mkdir .ssh.

After you have the home directory, and a .ssh folder under that, you want to open PuTTYgen and open the key (.ppk file) you have previously created. Once your key is open, you want to select Conversions -> Export OpenSSH key and save it to HOME\.ssh\id_rsa. After you have the key at that location, Git bash will recognize the key and use it

For TortoiseGit

When using TortoiseGit, you need to set the SSH key via pacey's directions. You need to do that for every repository you are using TortoiseGit with

Answer 2

Using the built-in SSH client shipped with Git for windows, you need to setup the HOME environment variable so that the Git SSH client can find the key.

For example on a Windows Vista OS,

setx HOME c:\Users\admin\

Made my day and fixed the issue with Git provided that your private key is not password protected. If you want to use ssh-agent, then you can probably run ssh-agent cmd.exe (although I've never done that) and the ssh-add as usual.

Note that all Git/SSH tools are supposed to be run from a cmd.exe in order not to blink a window.

If this does not work correctly, using plink can probably be achieved by tweaking GIT_SSH. Confer to all the svn+ssh tutorials, this is basically the same plumbing you need to setup.

Good Luck !

Answer 3

None of the answers above worked for me. Here was what worked for me in the end. It is actually fairly simple, if you know what to type. It doesn't need putty.

• open a git bash prompt
• type 'ssh-keygen'
  • accept the default location
  • choose a blank passphrase (so just press 'enter' to all questions')
• now copy to your server, eg: scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub someuser@someserver.com:~

That's the bit on your own computer done. Now ssh into the destination server, then do

mkdir -p ~/.ssh
cd ~/.ssh
cat ../id_rsa.pub >> authorized_keys
rm ../id_rsa.pub

That's it! You're done! From git bash, do the following to test:

ssh someuser@someserver.com ls

If it lists the files in your home directory on the git server, then you're done!

Edit: for github, you dont have shell access to their server, but you can upload the key using their website, so for the bit 'now copy to your server', do:

• in git bash, type 'cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub', select the result, and copy it to the clipboard
• In github website, go to 'account settings', 'ssh keys', click 'add ssh key', and paste the key

Answer 4

You can specify the Key Location for Tortoisegit the following way:

• Open an Explorer Window.
• Open the Contextmenu and Navigate TortoiseGit > Settings
• In the now opened window Navigate to Git > Remote
• Set the Path to your Putty Key in the corresponding Input Box.

Screen shoot below:

Answer 5

Your private key needs to be added to the SSH agent on your workstation. How you achieve this may depend on what git client you are using, however puTTY and its associated agent (pagent) might do the trick for you

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

Answer 6

I just set %HOME%=%HOMEPATH%

This has the advantage of working for all users logged into the system (they each get separate .ssh folders).

In Vista:

1. Right-click on Computer
2. Choose Properties
3. Click on Advanced System Settings
4. Click on Environment Variables
5. In the bottom section (System Variables) Click on New
6. For Variable name type: HOME
7. For Variable path type: %HOMEPATH%
8. Click OK

Answer 7

The problem was that the gitorious process was owned by root:root and not the git:git process, so it was not inheriting the in-correct permissions for the gitorious process it self and it could not find the repositories. Once I set all the gitorious related scripts in /etc/init.d to be owned by git:git I got a better error message and was able to proceed.

Answer 8

The following answer also applies to this question when running ssh from Windows Service Account: Jenkins (Windows Service) with Git over SSH

Answer 9

If you're using msysgit with the OpenSSH tools, you need to either create ~/.ssh/id_rsa, or create a git config in ~/.ssh/config which points to your key.

Here's an example of a Git config for bitbucket that will use the correct username, and a key other than the default key (in case you maintain one key for SSH connections, and another for git accounts).

Host bitbucket.org
    Hostname bitbucket.org
    User git
    IdentityFile /C/keys/yourkey.key

Once in git bash, you can run two commands to add your key to your current session's ssh-agent to avoid having to repeatedly type the key's password.

eval `ssh-agent`
ssh-add /C/keys/yourkey.key

Answer 10

Reading your comment to Declan's answer, try opening a command prompt first (Start -> Run -> cmd) and then navigate to that git/bin folder and run ssh-keygen. Theoretically that will generate an RSA key and place it in the appropriate directory. Then you just gotta find it and share your public key with the world.

The reason that the window "blinks" is because windows run's the program, and when it executes, it closes the command prompt, thinking you're done with it, when you really need the output.

Hope that helps!

Answer 11

There is a great guide to git for windows here that shows how to integrate putty and pagent for managing your keys.

Answer 12

I had similar issues and none of the answers here solved the problem. Turns out, my key pair were originally generated with an empty passphrase. (I know, dumb)

Once I created a new keypair and uploaded the public key to github, things started working again.

Answer 13

You can specify both path to key and name of key file like so (on ubuntu). For example:

ssh -i /home/joe/.ssh/eui_rsa