This is a bit of frustration post. I’m not a professional and some stuff is super confusing. And it might not even be programming only, as this seems to be a general issue when it comes to signing and security in computers. Every time I have to reinstall my operating system (its really only a few times in a decade), one of the things i fear most is signing into Github, signing keys and setting up local git on my Linux machine. I want the verified badge. Every time its a fight in understanding and doing the right steps, creating gpg keys and access tokens and such.
Am I the only one who struggles with this? Right now I have set it up and my test repository has the badge again. Do people care about this? Especially people like me who does a few little CLI and scripts and nothing else. Am I doing enterprise level security for the sake of an icon or is this really more secure? I do not have ANY professional background. As said I seem to have setup correctly now, so this is not asking for troubleshooting. Just wanted hear about your opinion and experience, and if any of you care.
In my work organization, we don’t allow pushes from users that have not signed their commits. We also frequently make use of
git blamealong withgit verify-commit. For this reason, we have most new developers at any level create a GPG key and add it to their GitHub profile shortly after they join or organization. We’re a medium-sized FinTech organization though, so it’s very important we keep track of who is touching what.That said, I can’t see it being all that important to an individual unless they’re very security-focused. For me personally, I have multiple yubikeys and one is meant specifically for SSH authentication and GPG operations including signing commits. Since I use NixOS and
home-manager, I use theprograms.gitmodule to setup automatic signing and key selection. I really haven’t touched it at all in years now. It was very “set it and forget it” for me.