Installing & configuring Git on Fedora

First thing first - Let's install git. There are two major ways we can install git 

• install from an existing package
• install it from source or

installing from an existing package: Easy, Open up Terminal and type the following command:

$ sudo yum install git-core ~/.ssh
$ sudo password for username: type your password here 

installing from source: It’s generally useful to install Git from source, because you’ll get the most recent version. Each version of Git tends to include useful UI enhancements, so getting the latest version is often the best route if you feel comfortable compiling software from source. It is also the case that many Linux distributions contain very old packages; so unless you’re on a very up-to-date distro or are using backports, installing from source may be the best bet.

To install Git, you need to have the following libraries that Git depends on: curl, zlib, openssl, expat, and libiconv. For example, if you’re on a system that has yum (such as Fedora), you can use the following command:

$ sudo yum install curl-devel expat-devel gettext-devel\
openssl-develzlib-devel

Once the installation is done you can do

$ git --version

this will show the version of Git you are using.

Now that you have Git on your system, you'll need to configure Git to use it. Following step you need to follow for configuring but before we start I am assuming that you already have a github account, if not please create an account in github.

Step 1: Check for SSH keys

First, we need to check for existing ssh keys on your computer. In the Terminal, type:

cd ~/.ssh
ls
# Lists the files in your .ssh directory

Check the directory listing to see if you have a file named either id_rsa.pub or id_dsa.pub. If you don't have either of those files go to step 2. Otherwise, you already have an existing keypair, and you can skip to step 3.

Step 2: Generate a new SSH key

To generate a new SSH key, enter the code below. We want the default settings so when asked to enter a file in which to save the key, just press enter.

ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "your_email@example.com"
# Creates a new ssh key, using the provided email as a label
# Generating public/private rsa key pair.
# Enter file in which to save the key (/home/you/.ssh/id_rsa):
ssh-add id_rsa

Now you need to enter a passphrase.

Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): [Type a passphrase]
# Enter same passphrase again: [Type passphrase again]

Which should give you something like this:

# Your identification has been saved in /home/you/.ssh/id_rsa.
# Your public key has been saved in /home/you/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
# The key fingerprint is:
# 01:0f:f4:3b:ca:85:d6:17:a1:7d:f0:68:9d:f0:a2:db your_email@example.com

Step 3: Add your SSH key to GitHub

Run the following code to copy the key to your clipboard.

sudo yum install xclip
# Downloads and installs xclip. 

xclip -sel clip < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
# Copies the contents of the id_rsa.pub file to your clipboard

Alternatively, using your favorite text editor, you can open the ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub file and copy the contents of the file manually.

Now you to open the Browser and perform the following steps 

1. Go to Github Account Settings
2. Click SSH Keys in the left sidebar
3. Click Add SSH Key
4. Paste your Key into the Key field
5. Click Add Key
6. Now Github will prompt you for your github password to Confirm the action.

Step 4: Test everything out

To make sure everything is working you'll now SSH to GitHub. When you do this, you will be asked to authenticate this action using your password, which for this purpose is the passphrase you created earlier. Don't change the git@github.com part. That's supposed to be there.

ssh -T git@github.com
# Attempts to ssh to github

You may see this warning:

# The authenticity of host 'github.com (207.97.227.239)' can't be established.
# RSA key fingerprint is 16:27:ac:a5:76:28:2d:36:63:1b:56:4d:eb:df:a6:48.
# Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

Don't worry, this is supposed to happen. Verify that the fingerprint matches the one here and type "yes".

# Hi username! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not
# provide shell access.

If that username is correct, you've successfully set up your SSH key. Don't worry about the shell access thing, you don't want that anyway.

Well we are done! Hope this helps.