Git on Cygwin: Fails to add the host to the list of known hosts

Question

I'm using cygwin git on windows 7 and everytime I do any operation that requires communication with github via SSH, I get the following message:

Could not create directory '/home/ltb/.ssh'.
The authenticity of host 'github.com (192.30.252.129)' 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)?

So far so good, I understand what's going on above. But once I enter yes, SSH should be able to insert the github key in the known_hosts file and move. Instead I get the following error message everytime:

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

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

I wrote a blog post about this very problem. The solution lies in the fact that your home folder in cygwin is most likely under /cygdrive/c/home/ltb/ and NOT under /home/ltb/ as you listed above. You can fix it like this:

1. Locate the passwd file, which is usually at C:\cygwin\etc\
2. Open it with your prefered editor
3. On the line that starts with your username, change the section that reads /home/<user> to read /cygdrive/c/home/<user> where <user> is your cygwin username. Adjust this path accordingly if different.
4. Save the changes and restart the Cygwin Terminal

Hope this helps...