Creating a SSH Public Key on Windows

In order to create a SSH key for windows you can follow these steps.

Generate your keys with Putty

  1. download putty http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/x86/putty-0.66-installer.exe
  2. start “PUTTYgen” from the start menu
../../_images/generate.png
  1. click the Generate (1) button and follow the screen instructions
../../_images/windows-ssh-keygen-save.png

4.) Fill the fields for comment (1) and add your name for instance 5.) Add a passphrase for your pivate key (2, 3) 6.) Save you private key in a protected place on the local filesystem (4) 7.) Copy the displayed public key and add it to your Gerrit account

Note

Keep in mind that putty uses a proprietary format to store keys, which is incompatible with OpenSSH, when you use any of the save-buttons. If you need to store you private key in the OpenSSH format use the menu item Conversions->Export OpenSSH key.

Use pageant to load your pivate key on startup

Putty provides a key agent named “pageant”, which can be added to your autostart folder. This allows you to enter your passphrase only once at startup and any tools using putty (e.g. git-for-windows, tortoisegit, etc.) can automatically use your private key.

In order to achieve this, create a new shortcut in the following folder: :file: ` C:Users<username>AppDataRoamingMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuProgramsStartup`.

The target of the shortcut must be: 

%ProgramFiles(x86)%\PuTTY\pageant.exe "<full path to your saved private key.ppk>"

pageant will run as background task and will place a nice little icon into your tray icons.