Windows/Build/subversion

Warning

This page is yet to be reviewed for changes required by the migration to Git. Information and commands on this page may no longer be valid and should be used with care. Please see the KDE Git hub page for more details.

This article details how a developer can set up the Subversion command line client svn and PuTTY on MS Windows to enable write access to the KDE Subversion Repository, using your existing SSH credentials from *nix.

Install PuTTY

• Install PuTTY

PuTTY is a free implementation of SSH for Win32. Download and install PuTTY. Using the Windows install file is the easiest method. As of this writing the current version is putty-0.60-installer.exe.

• Put PuTTY in $PATH

In order for MS Windows to be able to find PuTTY and its related executable files, you need to add their location to your PATH variable. By default, PuTTY will install to C:\Program Files\PuTTY. To edit your PATH (for Windows >= Win2k), Start -> Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Environment Variables -> System Variables -> Path -> Edit. Add "C:\Program Files\PuTTY;" to the end of the PATH variable value.

Enable Existing Key

• Transfer existing ~\.ssh\id_dsa to Windows

Copy the private ssh key that is associated with your KDE Subversion account to the MS Windows machine. In many cases this will be /home/kde-devel/.ssh/id_dsa. I put mine in C:\Documents and Settings\mark\My Documents.

• Load into PuTTY Key Generator

In order to use your OpenSSH private key, you must first convert it to a PuTTY Private Key (*.ppk). To do this, Start -> All Programs -> PuTTY -> PuTTYgen -> Load. Browse to wherever you saved your private key (id_dsa) and load it.

• Save Private Key

Once the key is loaded, click on 'Save Private Key' to save a copy of the key in a version that PuTTY can use. I saved mine as id_dsa.ppk.

Enable Pageant

Pageant is PuTTY's version of sshagent, holding your keys for you so you don't always have to enter your passphrase.

• Start Pageant

Start Pageant Start -> All Programs -> PuTTY -> Pageant. An icon will appear in your system tray. Right-click in the icon, then select view keys. If your key isn't listed, click on 'Add Key' and add the id_dsa.ppk key you created earlier.

• Add Pageant to Startup group

I suggest adding Pageant to the MS Windows Startup group so that it launches every time you start Windows.

Pageant does not automatically reload keys when it is started. See the Pageant Help: "Making Pageant automatically load keys on startup".

Configure Subversion PuTTY Tunnel

We need to create a new type of tunnel: subversion over PuTTY (svn+ssh://). We call the tunnel ssh for consistency with the Linux world. We could just as well call it putty and then use svn+putty everywhere. The default configuration for emerge (kdesettings-example.bat) uses ssh.

• We create this tunnel in the Subversion configuration file. Open %appdata%\Subversion\config

• In [Tunnels] section, we create our new tunnel by adding a line (use \\ for backslash):

ssh = plink -ssh -C -i c:\\path\\to\\id_dsa.ppk -agent <svnaccountname>@svn.kde.org

plink is the command line version of PuTTY. -ssh tells PuTTY to use SSH protocol. -C turns on compression. -i is the path to your private key. -agent tells PuTTY to try to use Pageant.

As an alternative to editing the Subversion configuration file, you can define the environment variable SVN_SSH just like you would define the ssh tunnel (untested).

Now open PuTTY (Start -> All Programs -> PuTTY -> PuTTY) and open a connection to svn.kde.org it will ask you if you accept the server id. Select yes, a terminal window with an error message may appear, this is normal. If prompted, enter your username. It may then throw errors, but don't worry. The authentication process between your computer and svn.kde.org is now complete, and you may close the PuTTY session.

Repository Access

• The repository can now be accessed by using the svn+ssh:// tunnel, e.g.

C:\KDE4> svn co svn+ssh://svn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/kdesupport/emerge

Setup Git

Install Git by either running 'emerge git' or by downloading the zip yourself from the msysgit page.

After installation you will need to setup the following environment variables (as shown above):

• Create a new variable HOME with value %USERPROFILE%. This will be expanded to the path of your account automatically.
• Create a new variable GIT_SSH with value: plink.exe

Git is now completely setup to follow the steps in the KDE Git tutorial

Possible issues:

• Message such as "The server's host key is not cached in the registry. You have no guarantee that the server is the computer you think it is." when cloning. It means that the server needs to be authorized. One easy way is to execute "plink [email protected]" once, and answering "y" when prompted. Now cloning should work.