Is there a better way to update known_hosts when using PuTTY's ssh for git?

[Brian Jones]

I've been able to configure git/Windows 7 to use PuTTY's plink to authenticate with Stash. However, the weak link of this method is that PuTTY does not provide the "do you trust this host? (yes/no)" prompt so I have to add Stash as a trusted host using gits ssh prior to configuring PuTTY and then importing the known_hosts using the Python kh2reg.py script. Is there a way to add stash to PuTTY's known_hosts file without doing this python hack?

BTW, for me, msysGit ssh resulted in 1 MiB/s throuput while PuTTY ssh resulted in 5 MiB/s throughput. I still don't understand why this is so slow, but it's a 5x improvement.

<h6>Install PuTTY</h6>

Install putty (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html) to a directory that does not contain spaces in the path. Example: c:\tools\PuTTY. If the path to putty includes spaces, the GIT_SSH environment variable cannot be used to point to plink correctly.

<h6>Set GIT_SSH</h6>

Set a system variable that sets GIT_SSH to the location of plink.exe in the putty installation. Example: GIT_SSH=c:\tools\PuTTY\plink.exe

<h6>Import keys into PuTTY</h6>

Run the PuTTY GUI puttygen to import the ssh private key. Save the PuTTY key as ~/.ssh/id_rsa.ppk.

<h6>Start pageant</h6>

This needs to be started each time you reboot.

C:\tools\putty\pagent.exe C:\Users\USERID\.ssh\id_rsa.ppk

<h6>Install Python</h6> <h6>Import known_hosts</h6>

PuTTY stores it's known_hosts into the Windows registry. I've not figured out how to cause PuTTY to accept Stash as a known host due to not being able to login to Stash using PuTTY. To get around this, the known_hosts file is imported using kh2reg.py (http://svn.tartarus.org/*checkout*/sgt/putty/contrib/kh2reg.py?revision=8519)

cd ~/.ssh

python kh2reg.py > hosts.reg

Then, double click on hosts.reg from the windows explorer.

[Brian Jones · Accepted solution]

MsysGit 1.8.3 release notes state: "If configured to use Plink, you will have to connect with putty first and accept the host key."

[Brian Jones]

Note: I've found that git HTTPS is faster than both PuTTY SSH and Windows git SSH.