VS Code SSH Key Path

The Simplest Thing Can Sometimes Be Hard

A key.

** I'm no dummy.** I know how to google a thing. But I struggled to solve this simple problem regardless of the fact that I have the entire Internet at my disposal.

I use VS Code on both Linux and Windows. I use an extension called SSH FS to access the file systems on the various Pi's around here. Sometimes I'm editing from a Windows machine, sometimes from a Linux machine. Just depends.

I really like the SSH FS extension for VS Code. I have SSH keys configured so I can do passwordless logins inside my network.

The problem was when I switched from Linux to Windows or vice versa I would get an error that said:

Error while connecting to SSH FS zeroone: Error while reading the keyfile at: /.ssh/id_rsa

I would then have to re-configure this setting in the SSH FS extension every time. The config setting suggested one or the other system variable, which was dependent on which platform I was on.

SSH FS config for setting the path to my keys.

I knew if I could set a system variable on one platform to point to my home folder in a way that mimicked the other platform's system variable, I'd be good.

Linux uses a system variable called HOME, while the Windows way of doing it is with a system variable called USERPROFILE.

I thought it would be easy to do. I googled it. Lots of advice on how to get it done, but no clear example of the actual 'spelling' of the variable. I saw Windows system variables spelled $VARIABLE$, and $VARIABLE in different posts on multiple blogs and forums. As a result, I initially tried creating the variable spelled like that. Finally I figured out I should leave off the $ altogether. That's way too simple. But not totally obvious to me.

It shouldn't be that hard.

I needed to create a new system variable called HOME that pointed to my user home directory. There is no system variable called HOME in Windows by default.

So here is a photo gallery with all the pertinent details:

This error is caused by a PATH problem. For the non-sysadmin, this was more confusing than helpful. Press the Win key and type 'path'. You want to see this dialog. Click 'Environment Variables'. Almost there. See 'HOME'? That's what we want to make. Click 'New'. When you're done typing, it should look like this. With your username, of course.

The captions provide some good hints.

Once I set the HOME system variable in my Windows machines, the SSH FS extension was happy, and now I'm happy.

And once again, VS Code is a Thing That Works!

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