Git - Basic first time / new computer setup

I occasionally build out VMs to work on particular small projects. They are usually Linux (different flavors) and I use them to isolate things like database and web servers.

The problem with doing this is I frequently need to install and configure git. Unto itself, this is not difficult but I wanted to quickly note the settings and configs I set and I figured it might help others' as well.

git config

User name and email address

$ git config --global user.name "John Doe"
$ git config --global user.email johndoe@example.com

Preferred text/commit note editor. I tend to prefer nano; it has been available on every Linux distro I've ever used...

$ git config --global core.editor nano

Reviewing settings

You can review your settings with $ git config --list

Setting up SSH

I tend to use SSH and this is a quick summary of how to set that up.

Run the keygen: $ ssh-keygen and answer the questions as desired/needed.

You should find, via $ ls -~/.ssh/ that there are now two files.

id_rsa and id_rsa.pub. The first one is your private key -- do not share that and the second one is the public key for things like Bitbucket.org and GitHub.

Add the public key contents as needed to the sites listed above.

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Other Suggestions?

If you have a suggestion of other relevant settings, please share below in the comments.

Frank Villasenor

Frank Villasenor

Owner and principal author of this site. Professional Engineering Lead, Software Engineer & Architect working in the Chicagoland area as a consultant. Cert: AWS DevOps Pro
Chicago, IL