How can I add an already generated SSH key to git bash?

I have an SSH key saved in D:/keys folder. I want to add it to my git bash. All the tutorials I found is how to generate SSH key using gitbash and load it to github/gitlab. I generated my SSH key using puttygen. Now I want to add it to my git bash so that I can clone a repository from remote. How can I do that?

4 Answers

On windows you might need to start the ssh agent like this

# start the ssh-agent in the background $ eval $(ssh-agent -s) > Agent pid 59566 

Add your SSH private key to the ssh-agent. If you created your key with a different name, or if you are adding an existing key that has a different name, replace id_rsa in the command with the name of your private key file.

$ ssh-add <path/to/key>

Got this information from here under "Adding your SSH key to the ssh-agent":

I don't think there is any specific config in gitbash itself. You have to put the key in the default location ~\.ssh/id_rsa and it will be used. If you need to have it somewhere else you could do so with a config file same as on Linux ~/.ssh/config

host example.com HostName example.com IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa User git 

Don't forget to set the permissions chmod 400 ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Assume the private key file you want to import to git bash is D:/keys folder/myprivatekey and your Git was installed in D:/Git (in which folder you would see the binary file git-bash.exe), open the file D:/Git/etc/ssh/ssh_config.

Here are some texts in this file:

...
# StrictHostKeyChecking ask
# IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
# IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_dsa
# IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa
# IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
# Port 22
...

Simply add a new line and save it:

...
# StrictHostKeyChecking ask
IdentityFile "D:/keys folder/myprivatekey"
# IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
# IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_dsa
# IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa
# IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
# Port 22
...

And the key is already added.

I was able to get it so the passphrase is only prompted for on the first window that's opened after booting using the script at Auto-launching ssh-agent on Git for Windows. I did find, however, it didn't work when I added it add it to either ~/.profile or ~/.bashrc. I needed to add it to ~/.bash_profile for it to get picked up and used by Git Bash on Windows.