Windows generate ssh key for gitlab

GitLab and SSH keys

Git is a distributed version control system, which means you can work locally
but you can also share or «push» your changes to other servers.
Before you can push your changes to a GitLab server
you need a secure communication channel for sharing information.

The SSH protocol provides this security and allows you to authenticate to the
GitLab remote server without supplying your username or password each time.

For a more detailed explanation of how the SSH protocol works, read
this nice tutorial by DigitalOcean.

Requirements

The only requirement is to have the OpenSSH client installed on your system. This
comes pre-installed on GNU/Linux and macOS, but not on Windows.

Depending on your Windows version, there are different methods to work with
SSH keys.

Installing the SSH client for Windows 10

Starting with Windows 10, you can
install the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
where you can run Linux distributions directly on Windows, without the overhead
of a virtual machine. Once installed and set up, you’ll have the Git and SSH
clients at your disposal.

Installing the SSH client for Windows 8.1 and Windows 7

The easiest way to install Git and the SSH client on Windows 8.1 and Windows 7
is Git for Windows. It provides a BASH
emulation (Git Bash) used for running Git from the command line and the
ssh-keygen command that is useful to create SSH keys as you’ll learn below.

NOTE: Alternative tools:
Although not explored in this page, you can use some alternative tools.
Cygwin is a large collection of GNU and open source
tools which provide functionality similar to a Unix distribution.
PuttyGen
provides a graphical user interface to create SSH keys.

Types of SSH keys and which to choose

GitLab supports RSA, DSA, ECDSA, and ED25519 keys. Their difference lies on
the signing algorithm, and some of them have advantages over the others. For
more information, you can read this
nice article on ArchWiki.
We’ll focus on ED25519 and RSA and here.

NOTE: Note:
As an admin, you can restrict
which keys should be permitted and their minimum length.
By default, all keys are permitted, which is also the case for
GitLab.com.

ED25519 SSH keys

Following best practices,
you should always favor ED25519 SSH keys, since they
are more secure and have better performance over the other types.

They were introduced in OpenSSH 6.5, so any modern OS should include the
option to create them. If for any reason your OS or the GitLab instance you
interact with doesn’t support this, you can fallback to RSA.

RSA SSH keys

RSA keys are the most common ones and therefore the most compatible with
servers that may have an old OpenSSH version. Use them if the GitLab server
doesn’t work with ED25519 keys.

The minimum key size is 1024 bits, defaulting to 2048. If you wish to generate a
stronger RSA key pair, specify the -b flag with a higher bit value than the
default.

The old, default password encoding for SSH private keys is
insecure;
it’s only a single round of an MD5 hash. Since OpenSSH version 6.5, you should
use the -o option to ssh-keygen to encode your private key in a new, more
secure format.

If you already have an RSA SSH key pair to use with GitLab, consider upgrading it
to use the more secure password encryption format by using the following command
on the private key:

ssh-keygen -o -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Generating a new SSH key pair

Before creating an SSH key pair, make sure to read about the
different types of keys to understand
their differences.

To create a new SSH key pair:

1. Open a terminal on Linux or macOS, or Git Bash / WSL on Windows.

2. Generate a new ED25519 SSH key pair:

   ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "email@example.com"

   Or, if you want to use RSA:

   ssh-keygen -o -t rsa -b 4096 -C "email@example.com"

   The -C flag adds a comment in the key in case you have multiple of them
   and want to tell which is which. It is optional.

3. Next, you will be prompted to input a file path to save your SSH key pair to.
   If you don’t already have an SSH key pair, use the suggested path by pressing
   Enter. Using the suggested path will normally allow your SSH client
   to automatically use the SSH key pair with no additional configuration.

   If you already have an SSH key pair with the suggested file path, you will need
   to input a new file path and declare what host
   this SSH key pair will be used for in your ~/.ssh/config file.

4. Once the path is decided, you will be prompted to input a password to
   secure your new SSH key pair. It’s a best practice to use a password,
   but it’s not required and you can skip creating it by pressing
   Enter twice.

   If, in any case, you want to add or change the password of your SSH key pair,
   you can use the -pflag:

   ssh-keygen -p -o -f <keyname>

Now, it’s time to add the newly created public key to your GitLab account.

Adding an SSH key to your GitLab account

1. Copy your public SSH key to the clipboard by using one of the commands below
   depending on your Operating System:

   macOS:

   pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

   WSL / GNU/Linux (requires the xclip package):

   xclip -sel clip < ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

   Git Bash on Windows:

   cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub | clip

   You can also open the key in a graphical editor and copy it from there,
   but be careful not to accidentally change anything.

   NOTE: Note:
   If you opted to create an RSA key, the name might differ.

2. Add your public SSH key to your GitLab account by clicking your avatar
   in the upper right corner and selecting Settings. From there on,
   navigate to SSH Keys and paste your public key in the «Key» section.
   If you created the key with a comment, this will appear under «Title».
   If not, give your key an identifiable title like Work Laptop or
   Home Workstation, and click Add key.

   NOTE: Note:
   If you manually copied your public SSH key make sure you copied the entire
   key starting with ssh-ed25519 (or ssh-rsa) and ending with your email.

Testing that everything is set up correctly

To test whether your SSH key was added correctly, run the following command in
your terminal (replacing gitlab.com with your GitLab’s instance domain):

ssh -T git@gitlab.com

The first time you connect to GitLab via SSH, you will be asked to verify the
authenticity of the GitLab host you are connecting to.
For example, when connecting to GitLab.com, answer yes to add GitLab.com to
the list of trusted hosts:

The authenticity of host 'gitlab.com (35.231.145.151)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:HbW3g8zUjNSksFbqTiUWPWg2Bq1x8xdGUrliXFzSnUw.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'gitlab.com' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.

NOTE: Note:
For GitLab.com, consult the
SSH host keys fingerprints,
to make sure you’re connecting to the correct server.

Once added to the list of known hosts, you won’t be asked to validate the
authenticity of GitLab’s host again. Run the above command once more, and
you should only receive a Welcome to GitLab, @username! message.

If the welcome message doesn’t appear, run SSH’s verbose mode by replacing -T
with -vvvT to understand where the error is.

Working with non-default SSH key pair paths

If you used a non-default file path for your GitLab SSH key pair,
you must configure your SSH client to find your GitLab private SSH key
for connections to GitLab.

Open a terminal and use the following commands
(replacing other_id_rsa with your private SSH key):

eval $(ssh-agent -s)
ssh-add ~/.ssh/other_id_rsa

To retain these settings, you’ll need to save them to a configuration file.
For OpenSSH clients this is configured in the ~/.ssh/config file. In this
file you can set up configurations for multiple hosts, like GitLab.com, your
own GitLab instance, GitHub, Bitbucket, etc.

Below are two example host configurations using their own SSH key:

# GitLab.com
Host gitlab.com
  Preferredauthentications publickey
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/gitlab_com_rsa

# Private GitLab instance
Host gitlab.company.com
  Preferredauthentications publickey
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/example_com_rsa

Public SSH keys need to be unique to GitLab, as they will bind to your account.
Your SSH key is the only identifier you’ll have when pushing code via SSH,
that’s why it needs to uniquely map to a single user.

Per-repository SSH keys

If you want to use different keys depending on the repository you are working
on, you can issue the following command while inside your repository:

git config core.sshCommand "ssh -o IdentitiesOnly=yes -i ~/.ssh/private-key-filename-for-this-repository -F /dev/null"

This will not use the SSH Agent and requires at least Git 2.10.

Deploy keys

Per-repository deploy keys

Deploy keys allow read-only or read-write (if enabled) access to one or
multiple projects with a single SSH key pair.

This is really useful for cloning repositories to your Continuous
Integration (CI) server. By using deploy keys, you don’t have to set up a
dummy user account.

If you are a project maintainer or owner, you can add a deploy key in the
project settings under the section ‘Repository’. Specify a title for the new
deploy key and paste a public SSH key. After this, the machine that uses
the corresponding private SSH key has read-only or read-write (if enabled)
access to the project.

You can’t add the same deploy key twice using the form.
If you want to add the same key to another project, please enable it in the
list that says ‘Deploy keys from projects available to you’. All the deploy
keys of all the projects you have access to are available. This project
access can happen through being a direct member of the project, or through
a group.

Deploy keys can be shared between projects, you just need to add them to each
project.

Global shared deploy keys

Global Shared Deploy keys allow read-only or read-write (if enabled) access to
be configured on any repository in the entire GitLab installation.

This is really useful for integrating repositories to secured, shared Continuous
Integration (CI) services or other shared services.
GitLab administrators can set up the Global Shared Deploy key in GitLab and
add the private key to any shared systems. Individual repositories opt into
exposing their repository using these keys when a project maintainers (or higher)
authorizes a Global Shared Deploy key to be used with their project.

Global Shared Keys can provide greater security compared to Per-Project Deploy
Keys since an administrator of the target integrated system is the only one
who needs to know and configure the private key.

GitLab administrators set up Global Deploy keys in the Admin area under the
section Deploy Keys. Ensure keys have a meaningful title as that will be
the primary way for project maintainers and owners to identify the correct Global
Deploy key to add. For instance, if the key gives access to a SaaS CI instance,
use the name of that service in the key name if that is all it is used for.
When creating Global Shared Deploy keys, give some thought to the granularity
of keys — they could be of very narrow usage such as just a specific service or
of broader usage for something like «Anywhere you need to give read access to
your repository».

Once a GitLab administrator adds the Global Deployment key, project maintainers
and owners can add it in project’s Settings > Repository section by expanding the
Deploy Key section and clicking Enable next to the appropriate key listed
under Public deploy keys available to any project.

NOTE: Note:
The heading Public deploy keys available to any project only appears
if there is at least one Global Deploy Key configured.

CAUTION: Warning:
Defining Global Deploy Keys does not expose any given repository via
the key until that repository adds the Global Deploy Key to their project.
In this way the Global Deploy Keys enable access by other systems, but do
not implicitly give any access just by setting them up.

Applications

Eclipse

How to add your SSH key to Eclipse: https://wiki.eclipse.org/EGit/User_Guide#Eclipse_SSH_Configuration

SSH on the GitLab server

GitLab integrates with the system-installed SSH daemon, designating a user
(typically named git) through which all access requests are handled. Users
connecting to the GitLab server over SSH are identified by their SSH key instead
of their username.

SSH client operations performed on the GitLab server wil be executed as this
user. Although it is possible to modify the SSH configuration for this user to,
e.g., provide a private SSH key to authenticate these requests by, this practice
is not supported and is strongly discouraged as it presents significant
security risks.

The GitLab check process includes a check for this condition, and will direct you
to this section if your server is configured like this, e.g.:

$ gitlab-rake gitlab:check
# ...
Git user has default SSH configuration? ... no
  Try fixing it:
  mkdir ~/gitlab-check-backup-1504540051
  sudo mv /var/lib/git/.ssh/id_rsa ~/gitlab-check-backup-1504540051
  sudo mv /var/lib/git/.ssh/id_rsa.pub ~/gitlab-check-backup-1504540051
  For more information see:
  doc/ssh/README.md in section "SSH on the GitLab server"
  Please fix the error above and rerun the checks.

Remove the custom configuration as soon as you’re able to. These customizations
are explicitly not supported and may stop working at any time.

Troubleshooting

If on Git clone you are prompted for a password like git@gitlab.com's password:
something is wrong with your SSH setup.

• Ensure that you generated your SSH key pair correctly and added the public SSH
  key to your GitLab profile
• Try manually registering your private SSH key using ssh-agent as documented
  earlier in this document
• Try to debug the connection by running ssh -Tv git@example.com
  (replacing example.com with your GitLab domain)

Repeated username and password prompts are annoying and time-wasting. If you use password authentication with your Gitlab account, each action requires you to send over your credentials, whether as part of the command or through an interactive prompt.

Not a reader? Watch this related video tutorial!

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Especially when automating the CI/CD pipelines in GitLab, password authentication can be inefficient and a possible security risk. Why not end your suffering and switch to Secure Shell (SSH) authentication using Gitlab SSH keys? Read on and learn how!

By the end of this tutorial, you will have generated an SSH key pair, used the key to authenticate and publish a new Gitlab project.

Prerequisites

This tutorial is a hands-on demonstration. To follow along, be sure to prepare the following requirements.

• Your GitLab account. If you don’t have one yet, sign up for a free account first.
• A computer to use as your Gitlab SSH client. This tutorial will be using an Ubuntu 20.04 LTS computer but should work with Windows and macOS too.

• Update or Install Git. The latest version as of this writing is 2.25.1.

Visual Studio Code (VS Code). The example in this tutorial will be using VS Code 1.62.3.

Generating a Gitlab SSH Key Pair

SSH keys or a key pair is consists of private and public keys. In a nutshell, the private key is what the client (your computer) presents to the server (Gitlab) for authentication, and the public key is what the server uses to decode your private key. And if both keys match, the authentication passes.

GitLab supports two types of SSH key pairs, the RSA and ED25519 SSH keys. But in this example, you’ll generate the ED25519 key pair as it is considered more secure than RSA keys. Follow the steps below to generate an SSH key pair.

1. On your desktop, open a terminal session and run the command below. This command opens your home directory in VS Code.

2. On the VS Code, click Terminal —> New Terminal.

3. On the VS Code terminal, run the ssh-keygen -t below to generate the ED25519 SSH key type. The comment tag -C is optional but recommended to make your keys more identifiable.

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "Gitlab SSH Key"

4. At the next prompt asking where to save the key, press Enter to accept the default filename. The filename should be similar to /home/<username>/.ssh/id_ed25519, where <username> is your username.

5. Next, leave the passphrase empty, and press Enter twice. As a result, you’ll be creating a passwordless SSH key pair.

You should see a similar result to the screenshot below showing the private key (id_ed25519) and public key (id_ed25519.pub) locations.

The private and public keys have the same base filename. But the public key has a .pub extension, while the private key does not have an extension.

Adding the Gitlab SSH Key to Your Profile

Remember that the private key stays on your computer, while the public key should be on the Gitlab server. So after generating the SSH Keys, your next step is to upload the public key to your Gitlab account. To do so, proceed as follows.

1. Open your public key file in VSCode. On the Explorer pane, expand the .ssh folder and click id_es25519.pub. Next, select the public key and copy it to the clipboard.

2. Now, open a web browser, navigate to https://gitlab.com, and log in to your Gitlab account.

3. After login, navigate to the SSH Keys profile settings at https://gitlab.com/-/profile/keys.

• Paste the public key that you copied earlier into the Key field.
• The Title field automatically populates with the comment portion of your public key. Leave the title value as-is or enter your preferred value.
• Optionally, specify an expiration date on the Expires at field.
• Lastly, click Add key.

Using Your Gitlab SSH Key

So far, you’ve generated the SSH key and uploaded it to your Gitlab account. What’s left is to test whether your SSH key works by using it to connect and authenticate to Gitlab.

Signing In

On the VS Code terminal, connect to your Gitlab account by running the command below.

Assuming you’re connecting for the first time, the command prompts you to verify the host’s authenticity and confirm the connection. Type yes at the prompt and press Enter to confirm.

Notice that you did not have to enter a username and password to log in? Instead, the ssh command automatically uses your SSH keys for authentication. After a successful login, you should see a welcome message saying, “Welcome to Gitlab @username!“.

Publishing a New Project

You’ve confirmed that your Gitlab SSH key works and lets you authenticate successfully. But does it also work when you interact with Gitlab through Git? Why not test by publishing a new Gitlab repository?

1. First, initialize the Git configuration and set it up with your Gitlab account’s username and email address. On the VS Code terminal, run the git config commands below to specify your Gitlab username and email address, respectively.

git config --global user.name "your_username"
git config --global user.email "[email protected]"

The command you ran should update or create the ~/.gitconfig file with the information you provided.

2. Next, create a folder under your home directory for your new repository. Name the new folder as my-first-project.

The folder name will also become your Gitlab repository project name.

# Create a new folder
mkdir ~/my-first-project
# Change the working directory to the new folder
cd ~/my-first-project

3. Initialize the repository by running the command below. Make sure to change the <username> with your Gitlab username.

You should see a similar confirmation message to the screenshot below.

4. Next, specify the remote Git repository address for your project. This repository address determines whether you’ll authenticate with SSH keys or with username and password.

Find the syntax below, where <username> is your Gitlab username and <project-name> is the Gitlab repository name. Notice that the repository address begins with [email protected], which indicates that you’ll be authenticating with the SSH key instead of a username and password.

Suppose the Gitlab username is kevin, and the repository name is my-first-project. Now run the command in the terminal as follows.

5. Run the command below to create an empty file in your repository called README.md.

6. Open the README.md file for editing and paste the following content into the file. Save the file after editing. My first project to demonstrate Gitlab SSH keys.

My first project to demonstrate Gitlab SSH keys.

7. Now, tell Git to add the new README.md file to the repository and commit the changes.

git add README.md
git commit -m "My first commit"

You should see a similar output as shown below.

8. Finally, time to publish your new repository. Run the command below to push the repository from your computer to your Gitlab account.

As you can see below, the project creation was successful, and there were no credential prompts! Git used your SSH keys to authenticate with Gitlab.

9. Finally, confirm that your new Gitlab project exists online. Using your browser, navigate to https://gitlab.com/dashboard/projects to view a list of your existing projects. You should then see the my-first-project name on the list.

10. Furthermore, click on the project name, and you should see the README.md file and contents on display.

Conclusion

Congratulations on having made this far in this tutorial! Throughout this step-by-step tutorial, you’ve learned how to generate and use SSH keys to make secure version control deployments to your GitLab repository.

With this knowledge, you can now perform tasks on your Gitlab repositories without worrying about inadvertently exposing your username and password.

Have you used Gitlab SSH key authentication before? How was the experience? Do you recommend others to use SSH keys, too, or is there any reason they should stay away from it? Let us know.