SSH Keys

Typically we’ll be going over this step together as a class. As long as you have Bash installed you’ll be okay.

It’ll be a good idea to first check and see if you already have any SSH keys: https://help.github.com/articles/checking-for-existing-ssh-keys/

GitHub has a set of instructions on how to create SSH keys: https://help.github.com/articles/generating-a-new-ssh-key-and-adding-it-to-the-ssh-agent/#generating-a-new-ssh-key

The below is an adapted form of the GiHub instructions

1. Open Terminal.
2. run ssh-keygen, this creates a new ssh key

Generating public/private rsa key pair.

3. When you’re prompted to “Enter a file in which to save the key,” press Enter. This accepts the default file location.

Enter a file in which to save the key (/home/you/.ssh/id_rsa): [Press enter]

4. At the prompt, when it asks for a password, just leave it blank and [Press enter]. Otherwise, for more information, see “Working with SSH key passphrases”.

Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): [Type a passphrase]
Enter same passphrase again: [Type passphrase again]

5. If you look at the contents of ~/.ssh, you should see the id_rsa and id_rsa.pub files.

$ ls ~/.ssh
id_rsa  id_rsa.pub

6. Copy the public key (is_rsa.pub)

$ cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

This is the public key you will use to paste into the system that asks for an SSH key

Other resources:

• https://www.rosehosting.com/blog/ssh-login-without-password-using-ssh-keys/

GitHub

Once you have your ssh key copied, you can add the key to your GitHub account by following the GitHub instructions:

https://help.github.com/articles/adding-a-new-ssh-key-to-your-github-account/

Lightfoot

If you have an SSH key on your laptop, you can use it so you don’t have to type your password when logging into lightfoot

1. run ssh-copy-id

$ ssh-copy-id YOUR_PID@lightfoot.vbi.vt.edu

It will prompt you for your password, and if it’s your first time connecting to the server also ask you to confirm the connection by typing yes

Once you ran ssh-copy-id, you can connect directly to lightfoot

$ ssh YOUR_PID@lightfoot.vbi.vt.edu

GitLab (devlab)

The process of adding a key to GitLab is similar to the GitHub instuctions: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/gitlab-basics/create-your-ssh-keys.html