How do I create my SSH key

First thing to do is to check if you already have one! On Linux, Mac or Windows with Git Bash, open a terminal window. Then run the following command:

ls -la ~/.ssh/

You're looking for a file ending with '.pub', you may have a few. The 'pub' is the public bit of the key. Type 'cat ~./ssh/', and then one of the .pub filenames you saw. You can then copy and paste the resulting text into our control panel. Here's a guide on adding an SSH key to your Timpani user account.

If you're running Windows without git bash, and have generated the key using PuTTY, you should open PuTTYgen, and load the private key. It should then display your public key -- the bit we need. You can skip to step 5 below.

Generating on Windows

There are a few different ways to generate keys on Windows. We'll provide detailed instructions for one, PuTTY.

1. Download the PuTTY installer from this site, and run it: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html
2. Click 'Start', and then search for and run the program 'PuTTYgen'
3. Click 'Generate', and then move your mouse randomly over the indicated box, till it generates the key for you
• If you want, set a passphrase to protect the key now. This will make the key useless unless you have the passphase. You'll need to enter the phrase every time you use the key.
4. Click 'Save private key', and select a safe place to keep it.
5. Select the public key, from the 'paste this into...' box at the top of the window, and copy it. Then follow the guide here to upload it to us, and this guide on using filezilla with it (via SFTP).

Generating on Mac or Linux

You should open a terminal, and then run the following commands:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096

When you're prompted to enter a save location, hit enter to pick the default (~/ssh/id_rsa), or enter another place to save it. If you already have an id_rsa file, it will be overwritten.

Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/username/.ssh/id_rsa): 

If you want to secure your key with a passphase, enter it here, or hit 'enter' to provide no passphrase:

Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:

You can then type cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub to output the key. It'll look something like:

ssh-rsa AAAA[snip]v9eFg1l+edRVyTpX6weBZyJ timpani@desktop

Copy that, and then you're ready to jump on over to our key upload guide here