How to let TortoiseHg (Mercurial) on Windows use the Private Key file generated (by Puttygen)?

Question

I have used Puttygen to create a public and a private key, and then is ready to let TortoiseHg on Windows 7 do a clone by going to

ssh://[email protected]/somecode

but there seems to be no where to add the private key to TortoiseHg? (or even just the mercurial command line)

The file is already some where on hard disk as somefile.ppk Does someone know how to add it?

Solution

Either add the following to the [ui]-section of the mercurial.ini in your home directory (assuming your key is in "C:\Users\UserName\mykey.ppk"):

[ui]
ssh = tortoiseplink.exe -ssh -i "C:\Users\UserName\mykey.ppk"

or use Pageant, found in the TortoiseHg installation path (e.g. C:\Program Files\TortoiseHg\Pageant.exe). Start it, double click the taskbar-icon that appears, and add the .ppk-file.

Comments

[nonopolarity]

i see. thanks. i may add here that the "home directory" on Windows 7 is something like c:\users\peter

[Apollon]

Note that if you want to specify your username, that can be done with the -l switch for tortoiseplink (add "-l myusername" to this ssh-line)

[David Martin]

Thanks, this approach can also be used for CCnet build server, just put it in the service accounts home directory

[david.s]

@HoangTran Use -pw password argument to login with the specified password.

[Hoang Tran]

@david.s Thanks, but that means password is put in this plaintext .ini file, what I look for is a way to save it securely.

[Josh Noe]

Starting in TortoiseHg 3.5, tortoiseplink isn't added to the PATH by default, so you need to do ssh = "C:\Program Files\TortoiseHg\lib\tortoiseplink.exe" -ssh -i "C:\Users\UserName\mykey.ppk" instead

[cham]

Also, you may not have tortiseplink.exe installed by default; that was the next prob for me.