jimsdots

My personalized dotfiles and configs for Windows 10 ⚙️

Project maintained by jimbrig Hosted on GitHub Pages — Theme by mattgraham

SSH

Contents

SSH Keys

Currently, I have the following SSH keys under version control:

Plus the config and known_hosts files for each host mentioned above.

Scripts

The following scripts are used to generate, migrate, manage, and symlink the SSH keys:

Notes

SSH Setup and Key Generation

Windows

# Enable OpenSSH Client (need ADMIN Priveledges)
Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name OpenSSH.Client*
# or via sudo
sudo Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name OpenSSH.Client*

# Generate SSH keypair for MSI Laptop
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "jimmy.briggs@jimbrig.com"
# save to file C:\Users\jimmy\.ssh\MSI_id_rsa
# No Password

# Copy public key to clipboard
Get-Content -Path $HOME\.ssh\MSI_id_rsa.pub | Set-Clipboard

# Add to GitHub
Start-Process "https://github.com/settings/ssh/new"

# Create config
New-Item -Path '$HOME/.ssh/config' -ItemType File
"Host *`r`n    HostName github.com`r`n    User git`r`n    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/MSI_id_rsa`r`n    IdentitiesOnly yes`r`n" >> $HOME\.ssh\config
cat ~/.ssh/config

# Test
ssh -T git@github.com
cd ~/Dev/sandbox
git clone git@github.com:jimbrig/jimbrig.git

Windows - MSI

# copy ~/.ssh files to .dotfiles/ssh/
Move-Item -Path $HOME/.ssh/* -Destination $HOME/.dotfiles/ssh/MSI -include ** -Force

# SymLink back to ~/.ssh
New-Item -Path "$HOME\.ssh\config" -ItemType SymbolicLink -Value "$HOME\.dotfiles\ssh\MSI\config"
New-Item -Path "$HOME\.ssh\known_hosts" -ItemType SymbolicLink -Value "$HOME\.dotfiles\ssh\MSI\known_hosts"
New-Item -Path "$HOME\.ssh\id_rsa" -ItemType SymbolicLink -Value "$HOME\.dotfiles\ssh\MSI\MSI_id_rsa"
New-Item -Path "$HOME\.ssh\id_rsa.pub" -ItemType SymbolicLink -Value "$HOME\.dotfiles\ssh\MSI\MSI_id_rsa.pub"

WSL - Ubuntu-CommPrev

# generate key-pair
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "jimmy.briggs@jimbrig.com"
# save to file /home/jimbrig/.ssh/WSL_Ubuntu-CommPrev_id_rsa
# no password

# create and edit config
echo "Host *\n    HostName github.com\n    User git\n    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/WSL_Ubuntu-CommPrev_id_rsa\n    IdentitiesOnly yes\n" > ~/.ssh/config
cat ~/.ssh/config
# or via VIM:
vim ~/.ssh/config

# copy to clipboard (NOTE: need alias for clip.exe here)
cat WSL_Ubuntu-CommPrev_id_rsa.pub | clip

# launch github ssh new page in browser:
cmd.exe /c start   https://github.com/settings/ssh/new

# Test
ssh -T git@github.com
cd ~/dev
git clone git@github.com:jimbrig/wsl-dotfiles.git

In order to use ssh-keygen on Windows, you need to have the OpenSSH client enabled.

Enabling OpenSSH client on Windows 10

In order to enable the OpenSSH client, you essentially have two options :

To enable the OpenSSH client via Powershell, use the Add-WindowsCapability option and specify the OpenSSH Client:

Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name OpenSSH.Client*

Path          :
Online        : True
RestartNeeded : False

Note : you need to be administrator in order to enable OpenSSH on your computer.

You can also enable the OpenSSH client via the graphical interface :

Installing the OpenSSH client on Windows 10 will allow you to perform multiple commands via the Powershell : ssh-add, ssh-keygen (the one we are interested in), ssh-agent, ssh-keyscan and the ssh executable.

On Windows, for version greater than Windows 7, you can use ssh-keygen in order to connect to your remote Git repositories.

Open Powershell and type the following commands:

ssh-keygen

The following prompts should look like this:

Enter file in which to save the key (C:\Users\schkn/.ssh/id_rsa):
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
	Your identification has been saved in id_rsa.
	Your public key has been saved in id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
SHA256:62DCkEWFILzHG8PhBEeQ2gzaEQ01/Y7VJEABWkuXGHI jimmy@DESKTOP-MSI
The key's randomart image is:
+---[RSA 3072]----+
|ooXOEO*+         |
|.+oX++o . .      |
|o=B.+  . +       |
|o.+X    o .      |
|  + +  +S        |
|   +  . ..       |
|    o o .        |
|     o o         |
|        .        |
+----[SHA256]-----+

image-20210830174436503

In the first prompt, you can choose to save your public key in a separate file, but you will need to specify the entire path to the file.

If you chose to create your keys in a separate file, you will need to create a file named “config” into your .ssh directory

Note : the “config” file needs to have no extension at all, it cannot be named “config.txt” for example.

Configure your SSH keys

In order to configure your SSH keys, run the “New-Item” command to create a new file using Powershell.

New-Item -Path 'C:/Users/user/.ssh/config' -ItemType File

Note : you have to replace “user” by the actual user using the account

In the configuration file, paste the following content in order to select the correct key when performing Git commands.

Host *
    Hostname github.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/custom_id_rsa

Save your file, and you should be good to go.

Add SSH key to your GitHub Account

# test/setup .ssh directory:
if (-not (test-path "$HOME\.ssh")) mkdir "$HOME\.ssh"
cd $HOME\.ssh

# generate key-pair associated with email address:
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "jimmy.briggs@jimbrig.com"

# copy public key to clipboard
Get-Content -Path $HOME\.ssh\id_rsa.pub | Set-Clipboard

# navigate browser to GitHub settings to add SSH key from clipboard
Start-Process "https://github.com/settings/ssh/new"

# configure SSH
touch $HOME\.ssh\config
echo "Host *`n	Hostname github.com`n	User git`n	IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa" >> $HOME\.ssh\config

Create SSH Keypair

if (-not (test-path "$HOME\.ssh")) mkdir "$HOME\.ssh"
cd $HOME\.ssh
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "jimmy.briggs@jimbrig.com"
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096

Add Public Key to GitHub

# copy public key to clipboard
Get-Content -Path $HOME\.ssh\id_rsa.pub | Set-Clipboard

# navigate browser to GitHub settings to add SSH key from clipboard
Start-Process "https://github.com/settings/ssh/new"

Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name OpenSSH.Client*

mkdir "~/.ssh"
cd "~/.ssh/" 

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "jimbrig2011@outlook.com"

New-Item -Path '~/.ssh/config' -ItemType File
$lb = "`r`n"
$txt =  "Host *" + $lb + "    Hostname github.com" + $lb + "    User git" + $lb + "    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa" + $lb
$txt >> ~/.ssh/config

notepad "~/.ssh/config"

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | Write-Output | clip

start "https://github.com/settings/ssh/new"