How to get started for a new user?

Hi, I am a new user to GitLab.com from GitHub.com. The steps that I used to get started with GitHub.com don’t seem to be working for GitLab.com. I have a project hosted at GitLab.com called install.load. I have already generated a SSH key and deployed it.

This is the content of the SSH .config file:

user name account
Host gitlab.com-username
HostName gitlab.com
User git
IdentityFile file path

Specifically, I would like to have answers to the following 3 questions:

  1. What are the steps to set up an account using the command line to clone an existing project & then push from a remote instance to the master project?

  2. Can this detailed information be added to the new user documentation? I have not been able to find this specific information on this Web site or through Stack Overflow searches.

  3. When attempting to clone my project, I have received this note:

The authenticity of host ‘gitlab.com (54.93.71.23)’ can’t be established.

Shouldn’t this note be avoided by the contents of the SSH .config file?

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

i followed a recommendation from @mojibakeumd and added a README.md at the root of my project “…Omnibus 7.10.1 which when a new project is created there is a red “Add file” button on the project page. You can create the readme.md (just name it so) and commit. the readme.md is committed to the repo in the base of the repo”. In my case, i just added it on my local PC and pushed. Once pushed to GitLab, a README tab shows up next to the Activity tab in project’s main page.

The file contains the instructions for the new user who wants to join the project:

README.md:

If you just joined this project and wish to clone its Git repository, do the following:

Git global setup:

 git config --global user.name "<Full Name>"  
 git config --global user.email "<LDAP ID>@company.com"

Create a new repository:

 mkdir C:\Workspace\Group  
 cd C:\Workspace\Group  
 git clone https://server.ip.address/Group/Project.git  

Hi @mrudd, I want to thank you for your response.

I followed your suggestion and did the git global setup, but I am still having the same error when I am trying to clone the directory.

git clone git@gitlab.com:iembry/install.load.git
Cloning into 'install.load'...
The authenticity of host 'gitlab.com (54.93.71.23)' can't be established.

Since this information is already contained in the git config file, shouldn’t gitlab.com be authenticated?

Thank you.

i used https; instead of git: protocol

to test, you can do this:

https://user:password@server.ip.address.group/project.git

if that works, there are git config option to store your creads in your Windows environment (win 7 in my case)

When using SSH, SSH will always prompt about authenticity of host when connecting first time.
Once you have trusted a server a line will be added to ~/.ssh/known_hosts.
I imagine there maybe multiple ssh servers behind gitlab.com, which likely have different ssh keys which could give you errors. You can set the following in your ~/.ssh/config
StrictHostKeyChecking no

Thank you both. After I accepted the authentication, I was able to add new files and then push the changes to my project.