Git uses SSH key pairs to authenticate the machine you are accessing the repository from with the place you store that repository. If you followed the post about installing Git on your MediaTemple server then this is the next step in getting Git ready. This post should also act as a quick reference if you are not yet familiar with, or just want reminding of, the method of creating SSH public keypairs.

What you will need

• SSH root access to your server (MediaTemple offer this though the Account Center)
• About 5 minutes of time

Method

This is a quick process and remarkably easy to do.

1. Log into your server using SSH. Usually this is ssh root@your-domain.com
2. Enter the command: ssh-keygen -t rsa
3. You will be asked where you want to save the key file, just press enter. (If you are told the file already exists skip the next 2 steps)
4. You’ll now be asked to enter a passphrase . You should enter a passphrase you will remember here as you will need it when you communicate with the main repository from now on.
5. Confirm the passphrase.
6. You can view the public keypair that was just created by entering: cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

That’s all, in the next post i’ll show you how to connect to your repository on Unfuddle.

As a developer I make frequent use of version control systems to keep my code safe and easily keep production sites up to date. I previously used the widely supported SVN but have recently moved to the open source project Git. This move hasn’t been without it’s problems though and one of the largest was that Git wasn’t installed on my MediaTemple (MT) servers. Luckily, I found an MT knowledge base article titled “Installing Git on a (dv) 3.5 server” but soon found it had a couple of holes in it which prevented a successful install.

So, in case you find yourself in the same boat, I present my method for installing Git on a MediaTemple Dedicated Virtual 3.5 Server.

This method may work on other providers servers; if it does drop me a comment and i’ll update the post. What I can tell you is this method is for CentOS 5 and will not work on a MediaTemple dv3 (it’s running Centos 4).

These steps are provided as a guide only and you follow them at your own risk.

What you will need

1. SSH root access to your server (MediaTemple offer this though the Account Center
2. Developer tools installed on your server (MediaTemple offer this though the Account Center
3. An empty text document to save some links into
4. About 30 minutes of time (after backing up)

Method

1. Ensure you have a backup of your server
2. Using your favourite web browser navigate to http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5/os/i386/CentOS/, this address is case sensitive
3. You’ll see a whole list of packages which you can install. The ones you need to locate the current links for are:
   • python-iniparse http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5/os/i386/CentOS/python-iniparse-0.2.3-4.el5.noarch.rpm
   • yum http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5/os/i386/CentOS/yum-3.2.8-9.el5.centos.1.noarch.rpm Copy the URLs into a text document as we will need them later. The URLs given here were correct at the time of posting this article so may be wrong now as the version numbers change. To find the packages quickly search the page for the names i’ve given, e.g. python-iniparse
4. Log into your server using SSH.

   ssh root@your-domain.com

5. Install the python-iniparse package by entering the command: (replace with the URL you copied earlier):

   rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5/os/i386/CentOS/python-iniparse-0.2.3-4.el5.noarch.rpm

6. Install yum by entering the command: (replace with the URL you copied earlier)

   rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5/os/i386/CentOS/yum-3.2.8-9.el5.centos.1.noarch.rpm

7. The last rpm we need is EPEL. Install this by entering:

   rpm -Uvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/epel-release-5-2.noarch.rpm

8. yum is now installed, making things a lot easier
9. Tell yum to update itself and everything it knows about by entering the command:

   yum -y update

10. When yum has finished updating, we can install Git. Simply enter:

    yum install git

    and answer y to the prompts

Git is now successfully installed on your MediaTemple server ready for use. Next post is about Generating an SSH keypair which you need to access your remote repository.