fpopic / .gitconfig-setup

.gitconfig-setup

How to prepare your git environment to work:

• with different auth ssh and signing gpg keys
• with different git hosts (e.g. GitHub, GitLab) and organization (private account, company account)
• with automatic keys selection based on the folder path

Steps:

1. Generate new SSH private key(s)

   • Generating a private key with a passphrase is a requirement on Mac ⚠️

     $ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "[e-mail]" -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa_github
     $ pbcopy ~/.ssh/id_rsa_github.pub
     $ open https://github.com/settings/keys
     
     $ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "[e-mail]" -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa_gitlab
     $ pbcopy ~/.ssh/id_rsa_gitlab.pub
     $ open https://gitlab.com/-/profile/keys

   • Make keys "persistent" automatically loaded after Mac reboot
   • Update ~/.ssh/config file:

     Host *
         UseKeychain yes
         AddKeysToAgent yes
         IgnoreUnknown UseKeychain
     
     Host github.com
         identityfile = ~/.ssh/id_rsa_github
         user = git
         
     Host gitlab.com
         identityfile = ~/.ssh/id_rsa_gitlab
         user = git
     

   • For GitHub make sure you authorized your ssh key with your organization via SSO

2. Generate new GPG signing key(s)

   • Execute

     $ gpg --gen-key

   • Note your GPG key ID, It begins after the / character in the sec paragraph after executing:

     $ gpg --list-secret-keys --keyid-format LONG [e-mail]
     sec   rsa3072/<GPG KEY ID IS HERE> 2022-03-03 [SC]
           5A233D97F169400541080D50D58FC20EB4027CXX
     uid                 [ultimate] first last <[e-mail]>
     ssb   rsa3072/560358F2315DB6XX 2022-03-03 [E]

3. Set up ~/.gitconfig so that it automatically picks up your git config based on the folder prefix

• We suggest to follow folder paths for all git repositories

  ~/Projects
  ├── github
  │   ├── my-organisation1
  │   │   ├── repo-1
  │   │   └── ...
  │   └── my-organisation2
  │       ├── repo-2
  │       └── ...
  ├── gitlab
  │   └── my-organisation3
  │       ├── repo-3
  │       └── ...
  ├── bitbucket
  │   └── my-organisation4
  │       ├── repo-4
  │       └── ...
  ...

• ~/.gitconfig

  [commit]
  gpgsign = true
  
  [includeIf "gitdir:~/Projects/github/my-organisation1/"]
  path = ~/.gitconfig-github-my-organisation1
  
  [includeIf "gitdir:~/Projects/gitlab/my-organisation3/"]
  path = ~/.gitconfig-gitlab-my-organisation3

• ~/.gitconfig-github-my-organisation1

  [user]
  email = [e-mail]
  name = your-github-username
  signingkey = your GPG key ID

• ~/.gitconfig-gitlab-my-organisation3

  [user]
  email = [e-mail]
  name = your-gitlab-username
  signingkey = your GPG key ID

4. Make sure everything works by cloning some repository using git ssh protocol

5. Read variables from respective paths

   $ cd ~/Projects/github/my-organisation1/repo-1 on main
   $ git config --show-origin --get user.name
   
   file:~/.gitconfig-github-my-organisation1 your-github-username

   $ cd ~/Projects/gitlab/my-organisation3/repo-3 on main
   $ git config --show-origin --get user.name
   
   file:~/.gitconfig-gitlab-my-organisation3 your-gitlab-username

Troubleshooting

• If you get the error error: gpg failed to sign the data try running $ export GPG_TTY=$(tty) before commiting and add it to your ~/.zshrc config if it helped

$ echo 'export GPG_TTY=$(tty)' >> ~/.zshrc
$ source ~/.zshrc