I was able to create a key and connect to github following these instructions via the command prompt successfully:
https://help.github.com/articles/generating-ssh-keys
However, when I try to connect via Sourcetree and putty I cannot. I've tried:
- generating a new key with the putty key generator (SSH-2 RSA)
- entering a passphrase
- saving the private key
- saving the public key and adding a .pub extension
- copying/pasting the key from the putty key generator window into github
- attemping to refresh branches on a pull from my private github repository from my local repo using the SSH clone URL I got from github
I also tried opening the key generated from the github command line instructions and it wanted me to convert it to a putty-type key which I did and saved off, tried with that one. Also no luck.
What am I doing wrong?
In order to get it worked I ended up going to Tools -> Options -> SSH Client and changing it to OpenSSH. I generated and uploaded several different types of keys trying to get it work as well but I think this is what finally did it.
In my case, I needed to switch to a git
or ssh
based repo path rather than the https
based repo path. This causes SourceTree to switch to SSH based authentication.
This setting can be found at Repository => Repository setting => Paths
Example:
Correct repo paths
git@github.com:<username>/<reponame>.git
or
ssh://git@github.com/<username>/<reponame>.git
(Note: if you are working with a repo that isn't yours, replace username
with organization name
)
Wrong repo path
https://github.com/<username>/<reponame>.git
HTTPS repo paths result in SourceTree trying to be extra smart and failing spectacularly. You get prompted for a username/password GUI dialog which will never work if you have 2 factor authentication enabled.
You may want to consider switching from OpenSSH to Putty / Plink and use embedded Git instead of Git provided by host OS. Making ssh-agent work on Windows is a bit more complicated than clicking it out straight from the SourceTree and PuttyGen.
If you want to still use terminal to configure SSH and start ssh-agent please see bottom two steps.
For Sourcetree on MacOS I had to change from OAuth to Basic authentication, use "git" as the username (not my GitHub username), and generate the SSH key and input it into GitHub. Only then could I clone a GitHub repo via SSH in Sourcetree.