Git/SSH configuration

01 November 2023 - 2 mins read time
Tags: git github ssh auth

In this blog post we’ll see a few things to customize your Git environment and how to create and add a SSH key to your GitHub account to use it for authentication, access and write data in GitHub repositories.

First-time basic configuration of Git

Git offers a very powerful function called config which is intended to easily set the configuration values controlling how it works, that are stored in your user profile in a file named .gitconfig; you can easily view all of them by running:

$ git config --list --show-origin

Listing all the git config properties

To get started, the first settings you should edit are the basic informations used by Git commit, i.e. identity and email.

$ git config --global user.name <name>
$ git config --global user.email <email>

The flag --global sets Git configuration values on global project level.

Optionally you can specify a text editor to customize Git messages. Git uses the system one (e.g. nano) by default.

$ git config --global core.editor <new-editor>

DONE! Let’s see how to add a SSH Key to your GitHub account!

What is SSH?

SSH (Secure Shell) is a network protocol for operating network services in a secure way over an unsecured network.

Setting up a SSH key is mandatory for GitHub users so they can safely access public repositories and share their contributions with the open source community.

Contributing to open source projects...

Prerequisites

Git
- Windows: https://git-scm.com/
- Gnu-Linux:
```
  $ sudo apt install git
```

SSH

Windows: follow instructions

Gnu-Linux:

  $ sudo apt install openssh-server
  $ sudo systemctl enable ssh
  $ sudo ufw allow ssh

Generate a new SSH key

Assuming you’re on a Gnu-Linux environment, open a terminal and move to the .ssh folder in your user profile:

$ cd ~/.ssh

If the folder does not exist just create it:

$ mkdir ~/.ssh

Generate the SSH key:

$ ssh-keygen -o -t rsa -C <email>

Press enter to accept the default location. When prompted, type a password!

Copy the output of this command:

$ cat id_rsa.pub

Head up to your GitHub account, navigate to Settings > SSH and GPG keys > New SSH key, paste the content copied above then click Add SSH key.

Adding a SSH to your GitHub account

DONE!

External links