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Home » Eclipse Projects » EGit / JGit » Possible to use a SSH Public Key for Commit Signing?(EGit not using ssh public key to sign even though GIT allows this)

Possible to use a SSH Public Key for Commit Signing? [message #1856723]

Sat, 24 December 2022 16:24

Eclipse User

Ok so from command line I can configure git to use my SSH key not only to authenticate me with GitHub, but also to sign my commits (using the public key). I do this with the standard configurations

git config --global gpg.format ssh
git config --global user.signingkey PATH/TO/MY/PUBLIC/KEY.pub

and when I do git commit -m "MyMessage" then it commits with no problem and when I do a git push origin branch then it pushes with no problem.

Yet when I try to use the EGit (6.0.0) in my Eclipse IDE (2022-12) no matter if I use the external GPG or the BouncyCastle it cannot load my public key as it is configured in GIT, I receive a "Unable to find GPG key for signing with key id "PATH/TO/MY/PUBLIC/KEY.pub"

It's pointing to the key correctly, but simply refuses to use it.

Now my key uses the ed25519 algorithm. I'm not certain if this is the problem or simply that EGit cannot use the ssh gpg.format to perform signing.

I would much rather work completely inside my IDE and not have to switch between IDE and command line, or IDE and GitHub Desktop. That's the whole reason I have EGit installed.

Attachment: egit-error.png
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Re: Possible to use a SSH Public Key for Commit Signing? [message #1856734 is a reply to message #1856723]

Mon, 26 December 2022 05:58

Eclipse User

This is not implemented in JGit (yet).

Re: Possible to use a SSH Public Key for Commit Signing? [message #1856758 is a reply to message #1856734]

Thu, 29 December 2022 08:07

Eclipse User

That's a shame. From your answer I'm assuming that it is on the roadmap. Is there a time frame for when this feature would be implemented? Is there a way for me to get involved to help move this feature forward? I personally find that this feature very important.

Re: Possible to use a SSH Public Key for Commit Signing? [message #1856780 is a reply to message #1856758]

Sun, 01 January 2023 17:36

Eclipse User

There is no roadmap, and there is no time frame. Like many FOSS projects, JGit is developed and maintained by volunteers.

I agree that it is a feature that JGit should support, but personally I won't have much time to implement it in the near future. If it is important to you, the best way to get the feature into JGit would be to help implementing it. The Contributor's Guide gives some help on getting started.

I did once quickly look at it. There is good support for the heavy lifting (reading SSH keys, actually signing) in Apache MINA sshd. The signing infrastructure in core JGit would need some improvements: recognizing SSH signatures on tags, and I'm not sure the current signer interfaces are good enough. Probably a new fragment providing an implementation of these interfaces using Apache MINA sshd would be a good start, plus a way to load the signer depending on the git configuration.

Re: Possible to use a SSH Public Key for Commit Signing? [message #1856785 is a reply to message #1856780]

Mon, 02 January 2023 06:12

Eclipse User

Sounds good. Thanks for the information. I'll get a clone of the repository and take a look and see if I can wrap my head around what's needed.

Re: Possible to use a SSH Public Key for Commit Signing? [message #1858854 is a reply to message #1856785]

Wed, 26 April 2023 10:18

Eclipse User

Jason Reed wrote on Mon, 02 January 2023 11:12

Sounds good. Thanks for the information. I'll get a clone of the repository and take a look and see if I can wrap my head around what's needed.

Hello Jason, did you have time to look into this? I'd be interested in the functionality as well. :)

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