SSH Key Setup Guide

If you're using Windows, you need to use PowerShell for these commands to work. Linux and Mac's default terminals should work.

Check if you have an SSH key already:

ls ~/.ssh

If you have files that look something like id_XXXXX.pub, skip to displaying the public key.

Otherwise, generate a new key:

ssh-keygen

You can change the encryption standard and stuff with some flags, but I won't get into that here.

Display the public key:

cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

Or if an RSA key was generated, do cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.

You should see the key in the terminal now. It should look something like ssh-ed25519 RandomCharacters name@server

Copy the ENTIRE LINE to your clipboard, including the "ssh-XXXXX" in the beginning and the "name@server" at the end.

Now SSH into your server:

ssh name@server

Run these commands on the server:

mkdir -p ~/.ssh
vim ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Paste the key you copied earlier onto the next available line in the file. Since it's Vim, you would probably press Shift+G to go to the end of the page, then i to enter insert mode, then Ctrl+Shift+V to paste the text. Then press Esc and type :wq to save and quit.

This last step is usually optional, but you can also set the permissions for the SSH folder:

chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

If you need to add an ssh key to Github, do ssh-keygen on the server you want to push/pull to, and copy the public key to the ssh key section of your GitHub settings.

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Just for fun, this is what the permissions mean:

7	111	read, write, execute (owner)
0	000	no access (group)
0	000	no access (others)

6	110	read, write (owner)
0	000	no access (group)
0	000	no access (others)