Multiple GitHub Accounts SSH Config

Question

I m having some trouble getting two different SSH keys GitHub accounts to play well together   I have the following setup   Repos accessible from one account using git github com accountname  Repos accessible from another account using git github com anotheraccount  Each account has its own SSH key   Both SSH keys have been added and I have created a config file   I don t believe the config file is correct though   I m not quite sure how to specify that repos accessed using git github com accountname should use id rsa and git github com anotheraccount should use id rsa anotheraccount

User · Answer

I have 2 accounts on github  and here is what I did  on linux  to make it work   Keys   Create 2 pair of rsa keys  via ssh-keygen  name them properly  so that make life easier  Add private keys to local agent via ssh-add path to private key For each github account  upload a  distinct  public key      Configuration     ssh config  Host github-kc     Hostname        github com     User git     IdentityFile       ssh github rsa kc pub       LogLevel DEBUG3  Host github-abc     Hostname        github com     User git     IdentityFile       ssh github rsa abc pub       LogLevel DEBUG3   Set remote url for repo    For repo in Host github-kc   git remote set-url origin git github-kc kuchaguangjie pygtrans git  For repo in Host github-abc   git remote set-url origin git github-abc abcdefg yyy git      Explaination  Options in    ssh config    Host github- lt identify specific user gt   Host could be any value that could identify a host plus an account  it don t need to be a real host  e g     github-kc identify one of my account on github for my local  laptop   When set remote url for a git repo  this is the value to put after git   that s how a repo maps to a Host  e g git remote set-url origin git github-kc kuchaguangjie pygtrans git   Following are sub options of Host  Hostname      specify the actual hostname  just use github com for github  User git      the user is always git for github  IdentityFile      specify key to use  just put the path the a public key  LogLevel      specify log level to debug  if any issue  DEBUG3 gives the most detailed info

User · Answer

I recently had to do this and had to sift through all these answers and their comments to eventually piece the information together  so I ll put it all here  in one post  for your convenience    Step 1  ssh keys  Create any keypairs you ll need  In this example I ve named me default original  id rsa   which is the default  and my new one  id rsa-work    ssh-keygen -t rsa -C  stefano work com     Step 2  ssh config  Set up multiple ssh profiles by creating modifying    ssh config  Note the slightly differing  Host  values     Default GitHub Host github com     HostName github com     PreferredAuthentications publickey     IdentityFile    ssh id rsa    Work GitHub Host work github com     HostName github com     PreferredAuthentications publickey     IdentityFile    ssh id rsa work    Step 3  ssh-add  You may or may not have to do this  To check  list identity fingerprints by running     ssh-add -l 2048 1f 1a b8 69 cd e3 ee 68 e1 c4 da d8 96 7c d0 6f stefano  RSA  2048 6d 65 b9 3b ff 9c 5a 54 1c 2f 6a f7 44 03 84 3f stefano work com  RSA    If your entries aren t there then run   ssh-add    ssh id rsa work    Step 4  test  To test you ve done this all correctly  I suggest the following quick check     ssh -T git github com Hi stefano  You ve successfully authenticated  but GitHub does not provide shell access     ssh -T git work github com Hi stefano  You ve successfully authenticated  but GitHub does not provide shell access    Note that you ll have to change the hostname  github   work github  depending on what key identity you d like to use  But now you should be good to go

User · Answer

Follow these steps to fix this it looks too long but trust me it won t take more than 5 minutes  Step-1  Create two ssh key pairs  ssh-keygen -t rsa -C  quot your email youremail com quot   Step-2  It will create two ssh keys here     ssh id rsa account1    ssh id rsa account2  Step-3  Now we need to add these keys  ssh-add    ssh id rsa account2 ssh-add    ssh id rsa account1    You can see the added keys list by using this command  ssh-add -l You can remove old cached keys by this command  ssh-add -D   Step-4  Modify the ssh config cd    ssh  touch config  subl -a config or code config or nano config Step-5  Add this to config file   Github account1 Host github com-account1     HostName github com     User account1     IdentityFile    ssh id rsa account1   Github account2 Host github com-account2     HostName github com     User account2     IdentityFile    ssh id rsa account2  Step-6  Update your  git config file  Step-6 1  Navigate to account1 s project and update host   remote  quot origin quot           url   git github com-account1 account1 gfs git  If you are invited by some other user in their git Repository  Then you need to update the host like this   remote  quot origin quot               url   git github com-account1 invitedByUserName gfs git  Step-6 2  Navigate to account2 s project and update host   remote  quot origin quot           url   git github com-account2 account2 gfs git  Step-7  Update user name and email for each repository separately if required this is not an amendatory step  Navigate to account1 project and run these  git config user name  quot account1 quot  git config user email  quot account1 domain com quot    Navigate to account2 project and run these  git config user name  quot account2 quot  git config user email  quot acccount2 doamin com quot

User · Answer

Use the IdentityFile parameter in your    ssh config   Host github com     HostName github com     IdentityFile    ssh github rsa     User petdance

User · Answer

A possibly simpler alternative to editing the ssh config file  as suggested in all other answers   is to configure an individual repository to use a different  e g  non-default  ssh key  Inside the repository for which you want to use a different key  run  git config core sshCommand  ssh -i    ssh id rsa anotheraccount   If your key is passhprase-protected and you don t want to type your password every time  you have to add it to the ssh-agent  Here s how to do it for ubuntu and here for macOS   It should also be possible to scale this approach to multiple repositories using global git config and conditional includes  see example

User · Answer

In my case none of the solutions above solved my issue  but ssh-agent does   Basically  I did the following    Generate key pair using ssh-keygen shown below   It will generate a key pair  in this example   keyfile and   keyfile pub   ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C  yourname yourdomain  -f keyfile Upload keyfile pub to the git provider Start ssh-agent on your machine  you can check with ps -ef   grep ssh-agent to see if it is running already  Run ssh-add   keyfile to add credentials Now you can run git clone git provider username project git

User · Answer

I spent a lot of time to understand all the steps  So lets describe step by step    Create new identity file using ssh-keygen -t rsa  Give it an alternative like proj1 id rsa and hit  with no doubt because you don t need a passphrase  Add new section in  ssh config   Host proj1 github com     HostName github com     PreferredAuthentications publickey     IdentityFile    ssh proj1 id rsa    Take into account the first section and note that proj1 github com we will back to the section later    Add the identity to ssh agent ssh-add    ssh proj1 id rsa That what I messed first time - now when you want to clone a proj1 repo you do it using proj1 github com  exactly the host from the config file   git clone git proj1 github com    A good tutorial   Don t mess up with hosts

User · Answer

I posted the technique I use to deal with these here

User · Answer

I used   Host github com    HostName github com    IdentityFile    ssh github rsa    User abc gmail com   It wokred fine   Use the above setting in your  ssh config file for different rsa keys for different usernames

User · Answer

Let s say alice is a github com user  with 2 or more private repositories repoN  For this example we ll work with just two repositories named repo1 and repo2  https   github com alice repo1  https   github com alice repo2  You need to be to pull from these repositories without entering a passwords probably on a server  or on multiple servers  You want to perform git pull origin master for example  and you want this to happen without asking for a password   You don t like dealing with ssh-agent  you have discovered  or you re discovering now  about    ssh config a file that let s your ssh client know what private key to use depending on Hostname and username  with a simple configuration entry that looks like this   Host github com   HostName github com   User git   IdentityFile  home alice  ssh alice github id rsa   IdentitiesOnly yes   So you went ahead and created your  alice github id rsa  alice github id rsa pub  keypair  you then also went to your repository s  git config file and you modified the url of your remote origin to be something like this    remote  origin           url    ssh   git github com alice repo1 git    And finally you went to the repository Settings  gt  Deploy keys section and added the contents of alice github id rsa pub  At this point you could do your git pull origin master without entering a password without issue   but what about the second repository   So your instinct will be to grab that key and add it to repo2 s Deploy keys  but github com will error out and tell you that the key is already being used   Now you go and generate another key  using ssh-keygen -t rsa -C  alice alice com  without passwords of course   and so that this doesn t become a mess  you will now name your keys like this    repo1 keypair   repo1 alice github id rsa  repo1 alice github id rsa pub  repo2 keypair   repo2 alice github id rsa  repo2 alice github id rsa pub    You will now put the new public key on repo2 s Deploy keys configuration at github com  but now you have an ssh problem to deal with    How can ssh tell which key to use if the repositories are hosted on the same github com domain   Your  ssh config file points to github com and it doesn t know which key to use when it s time to do the pull   So I found a trick with github com  You can tell your ssh client that each repository lives in a different github com subdomain  in these cases  they will be repo1 github com and repo2 github com  So first thing is editing the  git config files on your repo clones  so they look like this instead   For repo1   remote  origin           url    ssh   git repo1 github com alice repo1 git    For repo2   remote  origin           url    ssh   git repo2 github com alice repo2 git    And then  on your  ssh config file  now you will be able to enter a configuration for each subdomain     Host repo1 github com   HostName github com   User git   IdentityFile  home alice  ssh repo1 alice github id rsa   IdentitiesOnly yes  Host repo2 github com   HostName github com   User git   IdentityFile  home alice  ssh repo2 alice github id rsa   IdentitiesOnly yes   Now you are able to git pull origin master without entering any passwords from both repositories   If you have multiple machines  you could copy the keys to each of the machines and reuse them  but I d advise doing the leg work to generate 1 key per machine and repo  You will have a lot more keys to handle  but you will be less vulnerable if one gets compromised

User · Answer

As a complement of  stefano  s answer  It is better to use command with -f when generate a new SSH key for another account    ssh-keygen -t rsa -f    ssh id rsa work -C  your mail com    Since id rsa work file doesn t exist in path    ssh   and I create this file manually  and it doesn t work

User · Answer

Andy Lester s response is accurate but I found an important extra step I needed to make to get this to work  In trying to get two profiles set up  one for personal and one for work  my    ssh config was roughly as follows   Host me github com     HostName github com     PreferredAuthentications publickey     IdentityFile    ssh me rsa  Host work github com     HostName github com     PreferredAuthentications publickey     IdentityFile    ssh work rsa   My work profile didn t take until I did a ssh-add    ssh work rsa  After that connections to github used the correct profile  Previously they defaulted to the first public key   For Could not open a connection to your authentication agent when using ssh-add check  https   stackoverflow com a 17695338 1760313

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