Tuesday 12 April 2016

SSH Keys and Windows, basic no passphrase

For most people GIT access is controlled via username and password, this is fine when working only a small project, when rarely doing push and pull from your remote repos online. However the next step is to use an SSH key.

This mean that you share some information between your PC and the remote server, these are called keys, for the uninitiated. Using the Git for Windows installer and OpenSSH you can generate and configure an SSH key for the connection.

Disclaimer - This is not the most secure method but is meant to be a stepping stone to passphrase based SSH with an agent.

To create an SSHKey look to use the ssh-keygen application that comes with GIT for windows.
The SSH-keygen application is normally stored in the C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\ and a key can be generated with the following command
"ssh-keygen" -t rsa -f bitbucket_rsa -N ""
Details:
-t type RSA
-f filename butbucket_rsa
-N passphrase

The command above creates a key pair in the current directory called bitbucket_rsa and bitbucket_rsa .pub with no passphrase. You will need to copy the bibucket_ras to the ~.ssh folder in your user directory.
To make the PC use the private key (bitbucket_rsa) when making the connection, you can use the config file in the ~/.ssh directory. This file is formatted in the following way.
host bitbucket.blah.com
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/bitbucket_rsa
Details
host then the URL of the server that you are making the connection to.
Identify file this is the location of the private key file.

To add a ppublic key into your bitbucket account you need to do the following:
  • Sign in to bitbucket
  • click the top right hand profile button
  • click the manage account button
  • click SSH keys
  • click on the add key button
  • copy and paste the contents of the bitbucket_rsa.pub into the text box and then click add key.
Your key is now on the server.

When you make the first connection over command line to the server, you will be asked if you accept the host key the server and a finger print will be shown much like below:



[bitbucket.com]:3456,[0.0.0.123]:9090 ssh-rsa RRRB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQCch1FyAnxrvKPw7AkhVyfR9FOJNVzIAUfgxlhHDR7rafYgmJkSwUCZtsYKRv6wNUEeRHh5EU/yYr/2zn0+5l2A/AG6X95SwrBBSzpeelFo2hoIjIZmnHv93k5VK0OXfpAfKqBRDMY5s1tVcdyKa6qCirHydyYbViM3Ob3mBhrhY/w87jXZqaMLQlNUbMfH6iGdaVBNeqgqSPeclgHge7kwSoIukMY0pqiQAinS0bb3aPzl4dwNCJBrghV1eYKGHL7/ESX+Mj8PrsJDzWv1IxG6Ey5jjcY+zw/386sKY2QbmB55m91lg50LfEZP/1OorbLBxDqThAW5maU7J27knGaR
Once verified this will be contained in a knownhosts file in the .ssh directory, the same location as the config file and the private key.

Now you should have a very simple SSH connection available.