George Ciesinski

George Ciesinski

Python developer, Tinkerer, and Blogger. Obsessed with persuing useful new skills, and techy hobbies.

Setting up SSH on a Mac

2 minute read

In this post, I wanted to outline some instructions on setting up an SSH key for github on a mac. I recently exchanged my 2020 Intel MBA (MacBook Air) for a 2020 M1 MBA, which I will discuss in a separate post! This also means that unfortunately, I had to go through the whole setup again. Aside from all of the apps I use daily for programming, I also had to set the mac up to access my repos from GitHub.

As you may know, you can clone a repository using several different options. The most commonly used method is probably HTTPS, which is currently recommended by GitHub for it’s simplicity. There is less configuration needed and it is easier to do. The other option is SSH which is more difficult to configure, but is more secure, and more convenient in the long run. I won’t get into the details as that isn’t the purpose of this post, but for anybody who wants to set up SSH on their Mac, please read below!

Generate an SSH key

FIrst, go to your home directory:

cd ~/

Once there, you can use the below line to generate the key:

ssh-keygen -t rsa

This will prompt you to enter a filename, and by default it will suggest the default name /Users/username/.ssh/id_rsa. You can simply press enter to save it. You will also be prompted for a passphrase, which is basically a password to verify you are the owner of the key whenever you use it. You can make a passphrase and press enter, or you can just press enter for no passphrase. This will result in the generation of a private and public key, the latter ending in .pub:

~/.ssh/id_rsa
~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Save to Github

You will need to copy the public key to save it to github. The easiest way is to run the below line:

pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Next, go to github and follow the below steps:

  1. Click the dropdown beside your thumbnail on the top right, and click Settings.
  2. Click SSH and GPG keys in the settings menu.
  3. Under “SSH Keys” click the New SSH key button.
  4. Under title, you can name your key. I simply name it after the machine so I can identify it easily. Under Key, simply paste the value you copied earlier with the pbcopy command.

Once all of this is done, you are set! Your private key and public key will ensure a high level of security when interacting with the repo.

Thanks for reading my post! I hope that this was helpful, and that you are looking forward to future posts about git in the future.

Optional: Save passphrase to Keychain

On Mac, we have a built in password manager known as keychain. It is possible to save the passphrase so you no longer need to enter it when using git:

ssh-add -K ~/.ssh/id_rsa

If you prefer having to enter the passphrase every time for security reasons, you can skip this step.

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