If you need a full Example of how to make a SSH Pipeline check out my other Post!

Normally Drone CI clones the Repositories via http/https.
To be able to clone via SSH you need to first pass a SSH Private Key for the Cloning as an Environment Variable.

In this example I already added the Private Key in Drone as a Secret with the Name ssh_key

Make sure the Public Key is known to the Git Server.

Then I disable the default Cloning Step and create a new One with the Commands to clone via SSH:

  1. Call the Drone Secret with the Private Key with from_secret and store it inside the Environment Variable SSH_KEY
  2. Write the Content of SSH_KEY to a new SSH Key File ‘id_rsa’
  3. Set File Permissions to the Key File so that the SSH Client won’t output any Errors when it tries to use it.
  4. Add the Git Server to the known Hosts before trying to access it with SSH
  5. Clone your Repository to your current directory
  6. Checkout the Branch
clone:
  disable: true

steps:
  - name: clone
    environment:
      SSH_KEY:
        from_secret: ssh_key
    commands:
      - echo "$SSH_KEY" > $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa
      - chmod 600 $HOME/.ssh/known_hosts
      - ssh-keyscan -H git@your.gitserver.com > ~/.ssh/known_hosts 2> /dev/null
      - git clone ssh://git@your.gitserver.com:22/USERNAME/REPOSITORY.git .
      - git checkout $DRONE_COMMIT