Windows 10 SSH keys

Question

I am having a really hard time getting my SSH keys up and running after installing Windows 10   Normal method is create it and throw it in the user s account under  ssh   This folder does not appear to be available in Windows 10   Anyone else run into this   I need to have 3 SSH keys for different repos and this is really holding me up

User · Answer

If you have Windows 10 with the OpenSSH client you may be able to generate the key, but you will have trouble copying it to the target Linux box as the ssh-copy-id command is not part of the client toolset.

Having has this problem I wrote a small PowerShell function to address this, that you add to your profile.

function ssh-copy-id([string]$userAtMachine, [string]$port = 22) {   
    # Get the generated public key
    $key = "$ENV:USERPROFILE" + "/.ssh/id_rsa.pub"
    # Verify that it exists
    if (!(Test-Path "$key")) {
        # Alert user
        Write-Error "ERROR: '$key' does not exist!"            
    }
    else {  
        # Copy the public key across
        & cat "$key" | ssh $userAtMachine -p $port "umask 077; test -d .ssh || mkdir .ssh ; cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys || exit 1"      
    }
}

You can get the gist here

I have a brief write up about it here

User · Answer

Create private public key   Open up terminal  git bash  PowerShell  cmd exe etc   Type in ssh-keygen Press enter for default file save     ssh id rsa  Press enter for default passphrase  no passphrase  Press enter again Look at the output and make sure that the RSA is 3072 or above  You have now created a private public key pair  For GIT the key must have a strength of 2048  must be located in the users  ssh directory and be called id rsa and id rsa pub  When pasting the keys anywhere make sure to use a program that does not add new lines like VIM

User · Answer

I m running Microsoft Windows 10 Pro  Version 10 0 17763 Build 17763  and I see my  ssh folder easily at C  Users jrosario  ssh without having to edit permissions or anything  though in File Explorer  I did select  Show hidden files  folders and drives      The keys are stored in a text file named known hosts  which looks roughly like this

User · Answer

Open the windows command line  type  cmd  on the search box and hit enter   It ll default to your home folder  so you don t need to cd to a different one  Type mkdir  ssh

User · Answer

Also  you can try  for Windows 10 Pro  Run Powershell as administrator and type ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C  your email example com

User · Answer

I finally got it to work by running opening command line with  Run a Administrator  even though I was already admin and could create directory manually

User · Answer

I found a notable exception that in Windows 10  using the described route only wrote the files to the folder if the file names where not specified in the ssh-keygen generator   giving a custom key name caused the files containing the RSA public and private keys not to be written to the folder     Open the windows command line  Type ssh-keygen Leave file name blank  just press return  Set your passphrase Generate your key files  They will now exist  and be stored in c  Users YourUserName  ssh     using Admin Command Line and Windows 10 Pro

User · Answer

Open the windows command line  type  cmd  on the search box and hit enter   It ll default to your home folder  so you don t need to cd to a different one  Type ssh-keygen Follow the instructions and you are good to go Your ssh keys should be stored at chosed directory  the default is   c Users YourUserName  ssh id rsa pub   p s    If you installed git with bash integration  like me  open  Git Bash  instead of  cmd  on first step

User · Answer

Warning  If you are saving your keys under C  User username  ssh   the default place   make sure to back up your keys somewhere  eg your password manager    After the most recent Windows 10 Update  version 1607   my  ssh folder was empty  This is where my keys have always been  but Windows decided to delete them when updating   Thankfully I had backed up my keys    But    I bet some people will be reverting their PC s today

User · Answer

WINDOWS   If you have git for windows installed go to its folder     Look in the bin directory  There is a sh exe file  Run that     Then type      ssh-keygen -t rsa -C  your email here    Follow through instructions and then type      cat    ssh id rsa pub   clip   It copies the key to your clipboard  Now you can paste that public key to the server side

User · Answer

2019-04-07 UPDATE  I tested today with a new version of windows 10  build 1809   2018 October s update   and not only the open SSH client is no longer in beta  as it is already installed  So  all you need to do is create the key and set your client to use open SSH instead of putty pagent     open command prompt  cmd  enter ssh-keygenand press enter press enter to all settings  now your key is saved in c  Users  ssh id rsa pub Open your git client and set it to use open SSH   I tested on Git Extensions and Source Tree and it worked with my personal repo in GitHub  If you are in an earlier windows version or prefer a graphical client for SSH  please read below   2018-06-04 UDPATE   On windows 10  starting with version 1709  win R and type winver to find the build number   Microsoft is releasing a beta of the OpenSSH client and server  To be able to create a key  you ll need to install the OpenSSH server  To do this follow these steps    open the start menu Type  optional feature  select  Add an optional feature  Click  Add a feature  Install  Open SSH Client  Restart the computer   Now you can open a prompt and ssh-keygen and the client will be recognized by windows  I have not tested this  If you do not have windows 10 or do not want to use the beta  follow the instructions below on how to use putty     ssh-keygen does not come installed with windows  Here s how to create an ssh key with Putty    Install putty Open PuttyGen Check the Type of key and number of bytes to use Move the mouse over the progress bar  Now you can define a passphrase and save the public and private keys    For openssh keys  a few more steps are required    copy the text from  Public key for pasting  textbox and save it as  id rsa pub  To save the private key in the openssh format  go to Conversions- Export OpenSSH key   if you did not define a passkey it will ask you to confirm that you do not want a pass key   Save it as  id rsa    Now that the keys are saved  Start pagent and add the private key there   the ppk file in Putty s format    Remember that pagent must be running for the authentication to work

[ssh-keys] Windows 10 SSH keys

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