Some Notes on Using Git with Cygwin on Windows

Jonas Gorauskas — Fri, 24 May 2013 04:55:30 GMT

Just recently I rebuilt a system that I use for work. After I installed Cygwin on it, I started getting some weird errors when using git with ssh to do some source control tasks.

When doing a fetch, pull or push to/from origin, or really any git command that uses ssh to communicate, the ssh client would complain with the error:

Could not create directory '/home/jgg/.ssh'.
The authenticity of host 'github.com (204.232.175.90)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 16:27:ac:a5:76:28:2d:36:63:1b:56:4d:eb:df:a6:48.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

Once I enter yes, I get the following:

Failed to add the host to the list of known hosts (/home/ME/.ssh/known_hosts).

This was happening everytime I was using git under cygwin and very quickly the situation became completely unsustainable. But after doing a little research, I found a solution that is pretty simple:

Locate the passwd file, which is usually at C:\cygwin\etc\
Open it with your prefered editor
On the line that starts with your username, change the section that reads /home/ME to read /cygdrive/c/path/to/home/folder/ME or wherever your home folder is.
Save the changes and restart the Cygwin Terminal

Expect to see the authenticity check one final time and see the ssh client actually be able to write to the known_hosts file.

The Standard Output (windows)

Some Notes on Using Git with Cygwin on Windows