Secure Shell (SSH) is a remote access protocol. Git makes use of SSH for secure communication with git hosting services, like Bitbucket.
SSH uses a public/private key pair encryption to initiate a secure handshake between remote parties. This works by you as a client generating:
A key pair - A private key and an associated public key
Registering the public key with counter parties like SSH that you want to communicate with.
Only the holder of the private key is able to prove to the holders of the public key that they are who they say they are. So it’s important to keep your private key’s safe and confidential and not share them. The public key needs to be shared however.
How does Iguana X use SSH?
Iguana X invokes the ssh-keygen tool to generate the SSH keys required to authenticate with Git hosting services. SSH Key generation and registration with the Git hosting service is setup in Settings > Git.
We store these keys on a per user basis in Iguana X. This way each user can be authenticated with their own Author Info when they make commits.
ssh-keygen is part of OpenSSH included in Windows 10 onwards. For some older windows server operating systems we instead look to find these tools as part of the GIT installation. See How does Iguana X find Git and ssh?