Portable Git for Windows setting the HOME environment variable to allow complete portability including SSL keys and configuration for use with Git. HubPortable Git is a completely standalone version of the Git distributed version control system. A Bitbucket Server administrator can enable SSH access to Git repositories in Bitbucket Server. This allows your Bitbucket Server users to add their own SSH keys to. A step by step guide on using Git with SSH keys in Windows. Windows Git Ssh Config File' title='Windows Git Ssh Config File' />All you need do to get going is to download a file and unzip it into a folder. In theory, what you end up with is a self contained Git install which doesnt touch any other part of your Windows system, meaning that you can take your entire, ready configured version control system with you from computer to computer on a portable drive. However, there are a couple of issues which make Portable Git not quite as portable as it could be. In this article, Im going to explain the gotchas and walk you through creating a tweaked Portable Git for Windows install which is truly self contained. Even if you dont need to carry it around with you, its still useful to keep all your Git configuration files and scripts in one place where you can easily find them. The first step is to download the zip file containing Portable Git. Whats New in PyCharm 2017. Docker Compose on Windows, SSH Agent, Amazon Redshift, and Azure database support. Please note that features marked pro only are. Portable Git is a completely standalone version of the Git distributed version control system. All you need do to get going is to download a file and unzip it into a. My GIT setup runs fine in Linux, but when I try to set things up under Windows using Git for Windows and TortoiseGit, I dont know where to put my private ssh key. Once you have the file, unzip its contents into a folder of your choice. I chose to put mine in E Git. Now open the new Git folder. Inside youll see a number of folders and files. Run the batch file named git bash. Type the following git version. You should see something like this possibly with a different version number, depending on the version you downloaded By default, Git and MSys the minimal UNIX system it runs under on Windows look for configuration itemsstartup scripts, SSL keys etcin the current users home folder, which on my Windows 7 machine is C UsersMark. Theres sensible reasoning behind this, because it allows for different users on the same machine to have their own individual Git settings. However, if you install Git on a portable drive, youll want your settings to travel with the installationwhich obviously they wont if it is looking for them in a folder which may not exist on other computers. So, what we need to do is tell Portable Git to treat a specific location within its own folder as the home folder that way we can copy the whole Git folder anywhere we like and the settings will travel with it. Create a folder within the Git folder called home. I also created a sub folder within this folder called mark, to follow UNIX convention and in case I want to create different settings in the future. Now we need to set the HOME environment variable, which is how Git knows where to look for the current users home folder. I found the easiest way to do this was to edit E Gitetcprofile and override the HOME variable on startup. Find these lines normalize HOME to unix path. YNYBz.png' alt='Windows Git Ssh Config File' title='Windows Git Ssh Config File' />HOMEcd HOME pwdAnd on the line before them add this HOMEhomemarkWhere the path is the folder you just created, relative to the folder in which you installed Git thanks to commenter Genesis. Note that this is in UNIX format rather than Windows, so homemark became homemark. Close any Git shell windows you have open and run git bash. When the prompt opens, type echo HOMEYou should see the UNIX path you entered this means Git is now using your new folder as its home folder. Now well set the global name and email address which will be associated with Git commits in order to use Git. Hub, we also need to generate an SSL key pair for authentication. Java Program Exercises. Enter the following two commands at the shell prompt to set the global variables git config global user. Your Namegit config global user. Now that we have pointed Portable Git to the correct folder, you should be able to follow the excellent Git. Hub Help guide to generating an SSL key pair. Once youve done that, change to the new home folder and create an empty file named profile no extensionthe filename would normally be. UNIX, but MSYS lets you omit the period to make things easier under Windows. Open it up, paste in the following code from this Git. Hub guide and save SSHENVHOME. Initializing new SSH agent. SSHENVecho succeeded. SSHENV. SSHENV devnull. The agent has no identities devnull. SSHAUTHSOCK broken so we start a new proper agentif SSHAGENTPID. SSHAGENTPID grep ssh agent devnull. SSHAGENTPID is not properly set, we might be able to load one from SSHENVelse. SSHENV devnull. SSHAGENTPID grep ssh agent devnull. This will ensure that ssh agent is run when you start the Git shell, meaning you dont have to type in your SSL Passphrase every time you authenticate. And thats it You now have a completely standalone Portable Git install. Simply copy the whole Git folder to another machine or portable drive and you can continue working with your Git shell, without having to go through all these configuration steps again in every new situation. Cautionary Note if youre carrying your install about on a USB drive, be careful with your private SSL keyIf someone gets hold of it, they can potentially authenticate as you until you revoke that keys access from within Git.