Improve instructions for creating SSH key

The page https://open.win.ox.ac.uk/pages/open-science/community/Open-WIN-Community/docs/gitlab/2-1-starting-gitlab-account/ contains a description for obtaining the SSH key for setting up a Gitlab repository. In the description, there is a link to an IT website that contains a list of steps to follow. In our case, only one of the steps is needed, which is confusing for users.

When creating an SSH key for the local computer (as indicated in the “Creating a key” section in this link https://sharepoint.nexus.ox.ac.uk/sites/NDCN/FMRIB/IT/User Guides/SSH.aspx#title11), only need to run $ ssh-keygen -t rsa. Ignore the instructions after “To transfer the public key, use scp…”

Proposed solution:

• Update the instructions to include only the relevant line that needs to be run in the command window ($ ssh-keygen -t rsa),
• link to the IT webpage by saying that more information can be found there (https://sharepoint.nexus.ox.ac.uk/sites/NDCN/FMRIB/IT/User%20Guides/Git.aspx).
• review the instructions for adding the SSH key to the profile settings

changed the description

added Ambassadors label

Maybe also good to improve the user-friendliness of the docs for Windows users

marked the checklist item Update the instructions to include only the relevant line that needs to be run in the command window ($ ssh-keygen -t rsa), as completed

marked the checklist item link to the IT webpage by saying that more information can be found there (https://sharepoint.nexus.ox.ac.uk/sites/NDCN/FMRIB/IT/User%20Guides/Git.aspx). as completed

marked the checklist item review the instructions for adding the SSH key to the profile settings as completed

@qmp031 , could you let us know where things differ for Windows? Are the updates I made above still appropriate? Thank you!

sure! does the user path currently start here: https://open.win.ox.ac.uk/pages/open-science/community/Open-WIN-Community/docs/gitlab/2-1-starting-gitlab-account/ ? if yes, then this one leads you at the bottom to here: https://sharepoint.nexus.ox.ac.uk/sites/NDCN/FMRIB/IT/User%20Guides/SSH.aspx#title11, which has a super helpful instruction about how to generate a ssh pair on windows, but a beginner might not know at what point to stop following the instruction (it turns into something about jalapeno at some point. maybe that is fine and they will realise at some point, but could end up with funny emails

Ah, that's great, thank you. Do you think you could edit the page directly to include this link to create the ssh key for windows users, or add another section to the 2-1-starting-gitlab-account.md page to separate out the process for windows and Mac users?

New section "Windows" added.

closed