Generating a new SSH key

You can generate a new SSH key on your local machine. After you generate the key, you can add the key to your account on GitHub.com to enable authentication for Git operations over SSH.

  1. Open Git Bash

  2. Paste the text below, substituting in your GitHub email address 
     ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "your_email@example.com"

    This creates a new SSH key, using the provided email as a label.

     Generating public/private rsa key pair.

    When you’re prompted to “Enter a file in which to save the key”, you can press Enter to accept the default file location. Please note that if you created SSH keys previously, ssh-keygen may ask you to rewrite another key, in which case we recommend creating a custom-named SSH key. To do so, type the default file location and replace id_ssh_keyname with your custom key name.

    Enter file in which to save the key (/c/Users/YOU/.ssh/id_rsa):
  3. At the prompt, type a secure passphrase. Empty is acceptable 
    Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:

    Then the output is:

    Your identification has been saved in /c/Users/You/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /c/Users/You/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
SHA256:jYynp3LKfikfG5kgKq3uo2SmkDpaH8f2KjHllJ4L9EI your_email@example.com
The key's randomart image is:
+---[RSA 4096]----+
|                 |
|                 |
|       .         |
|    E +o o       |
|  .o.*..S .      |
| + .=o==         |
|=+o .=Xo.        |
|X+ o++=B         |
|@+..=O=..        |
+----[SHA256]-----+

    The new gereated ssh key is located in folder .ssh in above path.

  • id_rsa –> private key
  • id_rsa.pub –> public key

Adding a new SSH key to your account

  1. In the upper-right corner of any page, click your profile photo, then click Settings

  2. In the “Access” section of the sidebar, click SSH and GPG keys

  3. Click New SSH key or Add SSH key

  4. In the “Title” field, add a descriptive label for the new key. For example, if you’re using a personal laptop, you might call this key “Personal laptop”

  5. Select the type of key: authentication

  6. Paste your key “id_rsa.pub” into the “Key” field

    image at other location

  7. Click Add SSH key

Adding your SSH key to the ssh-agent

Before adding a new SSH key to the ssh-agent to manage your keys, you should have checked for existing SSH keys and generated a new SSH key.

  1. Start the ssh-agent in the background. 
     travis@travis-vm:~$ eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
 Agent pid 6315
  2. Add your SSH private key to the ssh-agent 
     travis@travis-vm:~$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
 Identity added: /home/travis/.ssh/id_rsa (YOUREMAIL@gmail.com)