Multiple Git SSH keys config for different accounts

multiple-git-ssh-keys-config.md

Setting multiple Git SSH keys configs for different accounts

1. Generate SSH keys with different names

ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "my_email@domain.com"

Keep them with different names. Lets say I created mine having path as followings -

~/.ssh/id_rsa_github
~/.ssh/id_rsa_gitlab

Optional - You may need to add generated key to local ssh-agent using

ssh-add <path of id_rsa key>

Running ssh-add -l would provide you list of saved SSH keys. Optional - Use ssh-add -D to clear any caches.

2. Create the SSH config

Navigate to .ssh folder present in main user accout folder and create a config file.

cd ~/.ssh/
touch config

Edit the config file to put following contents into it.

# GitHub account
Host github.com
  HostName github.com
  # User MyGitHubUserName  <- This is optional
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_github

# GitLab account
Host gitlab.domain.com
  HostName gitlab.domain.com
  # User MyGitLabUserName  <- This is optional
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_gitlab
  
# ### MULTIPLE SSH IDENTITY FILES FOR THE SAME DOMAIN ###
# GitHub personal account
Host github-personal    # keep the remote URL as "git@github-personal:[full-repo-path]" instead of "git@github.com:[full-repo-path]"
  HostName github.com

# GitHub work account
Host github-work        # keep the "-work" in remote URL like "git@github-work:[full-repo-path]"
  HostName github.com

3. Set local or global user details in .gitconfig

If you have same User_Name and Email, then you can user the global .gitconfig to store commiter's detail.

git config --global user.email "my_email@domain.com" // same as SSH keys
git config --global user.name "<My Name> OR MyName"

Or else, you need to set local user details in each repo's clone separately specific to that repo.

git config user.email "my_email@domain.com" // same as SSH keys
git config user.name "<My Name> OR MyName"

4. Test configurations

Use git's pull, commit and push commands to test newly added configurations. This works with both HTTPS and SSH urls. But, it works better with SSH and doesn't require UserName and Email everytime.