Using Git via SSH on Windows 10 (1803) on Powershell

by Frank Fu

Recently did a fresh install of Windows 10 with all the vital updates and tried to use git fetch  on both cmd and powershell but was prompted to enter my ssh key so I tried to run ssh-add but I got an error saying Error connecting to agent: No such file or directory so then I tried ssh-agent and got an error saying unable to start ssh-agent service, error :1058  so what could it be?

A quick scan of Get-Service ssh-agent | select * showed the following

UserName            : LocalSystem
Description         : Agent to hold private keys used for public key authentication.
DelayedAutoStart    : False
BinaryPathName      : C:\Windows\System32\OpenSSH\ssh-agent.exe
StartupType         : Disabled
Name                : ssh-agent
RequiredServices    : {}
CanPauseAndContinue : False
CanShutdown         : False
CanStop             : False
DisplayName         : OpenSSH Authentication Agent
DependentServices   : {}
MachineName         : .
ServiceName         : ssh-agent
ServicesDependedOn  : {}
StartType           : Disabled
ServiceHandle       : Microsoft.Win32.SafeHandles.SafeServiceHandle
Status              : Stopped
ServiceType         : Win32OwnProcess
Site                :
Container           :

I quickly noticed that the StartType was set to Disabled. Not sure for what reason?  To fix this I had to first change it back to Manual then start the service again.

Get-Service -Name ssh-agent | Set-Service -StartupType Manual
Start-Service ssh-agent

But it didn't end here, I also had to instruct git to look for ssh in Windows' directory

git config --global core.sshCommand C:/Windows/System32/OpenSSH/ssh.exe

So now that git knows where to look for ssh we can now add our private key to the ssh authentiction agent ssh-add then double checking with ssh-add -l

2048 SHA256:p80/dPfeSzXZPM7ba61214oXCNzMB+v+s/K8gexampleaWzx7Y /home/owo/.ssh/id_rsa (RSA)