DEV Community

Cover image for Git & GitHub: Installation and Configuration
Chris Achinga
Chris Achinga

Posted on • Edited on

Git & GitHub: Installation and Configuration

I am a big fan of git and GitHub, but familiarizing with the tools is not an easy task without practice. I had to google articles for installation and configuring git and GitHub on my laptop. So after getting it all right, I decided to write about it. I probably will refer to this article when installing git again. LOL

Installing git

Install git from here
Choose a selection based on your operating system.
For Linux and Ubuntu OS, you may use this alternative:
Open your terminal and paste the command below:

sudo apt install git-all
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Configure git with your GitHub Account

Ensure you have a GitHub account. If not, create one here Join GitHub.

First of all, we’ll configure your details to git.
“Assuming your GitHub username is DevAcc and the email used on GitHub is devacc@mail.com
On your terminal, use the following commands:

$ git config --global user.name "devAcc"
$ git config --global user.email “devacc@mail.com”
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

To confirm the details use

git config --list

With that set, you should be ready to start working efficiently with your local repository.

Generating a git ssh key

This prevents git from requesting your username and password every time you push into GitHub. (it’s annoying)
So this is how we do it:

Open your terminal and use the commands below:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "devacc@mail.com"
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

This will prompt you to enter a location to save the key and also create a password like a key to access that.

Connecting to Your GitHub Account

After this, you’ll need to copy the key to the clipboard.
Use the command below to view the ssh key in a human readable format:

cat < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Copy the key displayed to your clipboard.

Go to your GitHub profile and navigate to settings: https://github.com/settings/profile
On the left side panel click on SSH and GPG keys, then click on the top green button “New SSH” and paste the key there.
Voila! You are good to go

My Profile

Top comments (1)

Collapse
 
chrisachinga profile image
Chris Achinga

it works on mine