Multiple Gitlab accounts with multiple ssh keys

multiple-keys-gitlab.md

Gitlab won't allow reuse of a public ssh key for multiple accounts. To get around this you need to create a second ssh key for the second account.

Create or modify your ~/.ssh/config file:

# normal                                                                                                                                                                  
Host gitlab.com-work_username
     HostName gitlab.com
     PreferredAuthentications publickey
     IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

# second                                                                                                                                                                  
Host gitlab.com-personal_username
     HostName gitlab.com
     PreferredAuthentications publickey
     IdentityFile ~/.ssh/second_key

Check that both authenticate correctly with Gitlab:

ssh -T git@gitlab.com-work_username
ssh -T git@gitlab.com-personal_username

Then in the repo you want to use the second account for, edit the .git/config file:

[remote "origin"]
        url = git@gitlab.com-personal_username:group-name/repo-name.git

Added the -personal_username after gitlab.com

---

To clone the repo initially you can use:

GIT_SSH_COMMAND='ssh -i ~/.ssh/<second_private_key> -o IdentitiesOnly=yes' git clone <repo_url.git>

Thanks.

Thanks for this. If you're going through the trouble of making the Host entries in ~/.ssh/config, you could set User to git, then it's not needed on the command line or in the git remote config

What if it doesn't work for me? Both of the accounts doesn't authenticate

Thanks for this. If you're going through the trouble of making the Host entries in ~/.ssh/config, you could set User to git, then it's not needed on the command line or in the git remote config

Worked, when I changed PreferredAuthentications publickey to User git

Why we don't need to also add -work_username to the remote url for the work repos?

many thanks 👍

Thank you so mush.

Thanks you.