Using Git with Bitvise SSH Client

You can configure Git to use Bitvise SSH Client to connect to a repository over SSH. You can do this for:

  • Convenience: You may already have Bitvise SSH Client set up, or you may prefer it for Kerberos authentication.
  • Performance: You may find Bitvise SSH Client is faster in your environment.

The component of the SSH Client that can be used for this purpose is sexec. This is a command line client that supports a variety of command line parameters. To learn more about the possible parameters, run sexec in a Command Prompt or PowerShell window like this:

sexec -?

Or like this:

sexec -? | more

Configure Git core.sshCommand to run sexec

Since Git version 2.10, you can configure the Git configuration variable core.sshCommand. You can configure this to run sexec as follows:

git config --global core.sshCommand "sexec -git -pk=g1"

Notes:

  • To use the -git parameter, use Bitvise SSH Client version 7.36 or later.

  • This will authenticate against any SSH server you use with Git using the key stored in the SSH Client's location Global 1.

  • To use different authentication credentials for different servers, omit the parameter --global so as to configure core.sshCommand specific to the current repository.

If instead of -pk=..., you prefer to authenticate using a client key stored in a file, use:

git config --global core.sshCommand "sexec -git -keypairFile=C:/Path/To/keypair.bkp"

Note the use of forward slashes instead of backslashes because Git interprets backslashes as escape characters.