User:Dvorapa/Toolforge for beginners/Set up computer
Once your tool is ready, you'll need to access its directory and command line. In order to do that, you'll need to set your computer up. This might already be done if you have used Gerrit before as the same steps applies to both.
Set up your computer
If you are not sure, whether you have set up your computer, look into .ssh folder in your home directory and search for id_rsa.pub file:
$ ls ~/.ssh
If it is not here, use the following steps to generate your key and create the key file:
$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "your_email@youremail.com"
Press enter to use the default settings for the file name and location and fill in a memorable passphrase. The computer will remember it for yourself, but still it should be complex and unique.
Now copy the exact contents of the generated file and paste it to the Add public SSH key option on Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-openstack page:
- Linux
$ cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub # Shows the contents of the id_rsa.pub file on the screen
- Mac OS X
$ pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub # Copies the contents of the id_rsa.pub file to your clipboard
Now you are able to use the generated key when connecting your PC to Wikimedia Cloud services using ssh. Finally have your computer remember your passphrase for you. Get ssh agent running using:
$ eval `ssh-agent`
Make sure you use accent (`) and not the single quote (').
Add your private key to the agent:
$ ssh-add .ssh/id_rsa
Run ssh for your first time:
$ ssh <username>@login.tools.wmflabs.org
Do be paranoid and check for the matching SSH fingerprint when logging in for the first time.
The welcome screen should appear here. If no error was shown, your computer should be ready and set up. You can exit the ssh using:
$ exit
Follow announce channels
Since you have your account, membership, tool and also your computer set up already, you are now ready to work with Toolforge. But one last thing we highly recommend still remains. Toolforge is a live environment, similarly to Wikipedia. There might be some outages, maintenance reboots, backend upgrades or administration changes you definitely shouldn't miss. To stay in touch, you can follow the following communication channels:
- The most important channel to watch definitely is the announce mailing list at cloud-announce@. It informs about all the critical changes you should never miss.
- Also the major near-term plans are nicely organized on the News wiki page.
- Finally some background details and interesting things about Toolforge are shared on Clouds & Unicorns blog.
See also