Setting up SSH and Git on Windows 10

Welcome to my first official guide on Dev.to. Today I want to explain how you can setup SSH and Git on your Windows 10 computer.

What is SSH?

SSH stands for Secure Shell and is an awesome way to authenticate yourself on remote servers (for example the Github server) without typing in a password everytime.

SSH works via two keys, the Private Key and the Public Key. While the private key should always stay private and safe, the public key can be shared around the internet without any problems.

The private key allows you to get access to servers that have your public key registered, so your access can only be stolen if the attacker somehow gets your Secret Key so keep it safe!

SSH should be preinstalled on new Windows 10 machines.

What is Git?

Git is a free version management tool that helps you to versionize your code and potentially save it on a remote server (for example Github, Gitlab or Bitbucket).

You can install Git from here:
https://git-scm.com/download/win

You can also install Git via chocolatey:

choco install git -Y

Create a SSH Key

The first step is to generate a new SSH key. Use cmd or Powershell and run the following command:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "[email protected]"

You can but don't need to give it a passphrase since you should never share your secret key around. Keep in mind that everybody can have as many private keys as they want.

This generates a new private SSH key with rsa encryption and 4096 bits. It also generates a public key from the secret key which you can share around.

There will be a new folder and files in your Windows user folder.

Register your SSH Key on Github

The next step is to register your generated SSH key on Github. For that, run the following command:

type C:\Users\your_user_name\.ssh\id_rsa.pub

and copy the output string into your clipboard. Now go to your Github keys settings and add a new SSH key with your public key and save it.

Congratulations! You now are able to get and push code to Github without any password!

Note: There should also be a C:\Users\your_user_name\.ssh\id_rsa file. This is your private key, don't share this around!

Setup Github in your Shell

Now it's time to setup Git on your machine. After installing it from the link above, open a new cmd or Powershell window. Now we need to set your public Git name and Git email address. This will always be public when pushing code.

Luckily Github gives you a privatized email address for use. Go to https://github.com/settings/emails and you will find a @users.noreply.github.com email address for your account. Copy this email address.

Next register your name and email in Git:

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

Congratulations! Now all your Commits will be signed with your Github user.

Use Git

Now you're ready to actually use Git. From now you can clone repositories via git clone or push new code to Github. Here is a quick reference:

# Clone a repository to the current directorygit clone [REPOSITORY_CLONE_URL]# Create a new commit with a messagegit commit -m "Your commit message"# Add files to the commitgit add .git add ./filename.ext# Push your commits to Githubgit push origin mastergit push origin [YOUR_BRANCH_NAME]# Reset your repo to the last versiongit reset --hard# Create a new branchgit checkout -b [YOUR_BRANCH_NAME]# Switch branchesgit checkout [YOUR_BRANCH_NAME]git checkout master# Reset a single filegit checkout ./filename.ext

Conclusion

Thanks for reading this post. I hope it helped you with the setup. If you need help or have questions let me know!