Git with multiple accounts

git-with-multiple-accounts.md

Git with multiple accounts

Problem

You have multiple Git accounts (e.g. one for work, another for play) and want to organize your local system to keep things separate.

Strategy

Create a separate private/public key pair for each Git account. Add each Git account in your local ~/.ssh/config file.

How to do it

These steps have been verified on OS X, should work similarly for a windows / linux system.

On Local

Generate a ssh key for each of your accounts (for example, one for your work Git account, another for personal account). Example below shows ssh key generation for your work account.

$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -c “me@work” -f "id_work"
             -------1------    ----2----    -----3---

• Legend
  • [1] -t option specifies the algorithm (RSA), -b specifies the key size (4096 bits)
  • [2] -c option is a comment. As a matter of practice, I tag it with my email (work email in this case)
  • [3] -f option is the filename that stores the private/public keys (the public key has an extension .pub)

The following files containing private/public keys are created as a result of the above command:

• ~/.ssh/id_work, the private key
• ~/.ssh/id_work.pub, the public key

As next step, add the private key to the config file ~/.ssh/config. If the config file doesn't exist, create one.

Host github-at-work               ...1
    HostName bitbucket.org        ...2
    User git                      ...3
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_work   ...4
    UseKeychain yes               ...5

• Legend
  • [1] Provide a string to use for this Git account ("github-at-work" in this case)
  • [2] Hostname domain ("bitbucket.org", "github.com", etc)
  • [3] User is always "git"
  • [4] The ssh key you created for this Host
  • [5] UseKeychain is always "yes"

Save the above file. Now you are ready to set up your Git account to synchronize with your local system, and clone a repository.

On Git

• Log on to your git account
• Copy the ssh key you created on local (you will need to do this for every local machine you want to connect to your git account)
  • Copy to clipboard cat ~/.ssh/id_work.pub | pbcopy .
• Add the ssh key to this account (paste from clipboard)
  • Bitbucket.org: BitBucketSettings > SSH Keys
  • Github.com: Settings > SSG and GPG keys > Click button “New SSH Key”

You are now ready to clone your Git repository.

Clone your repository

To clone a repository, use this command on your local system:

 git clone git@github-at-work:path/to/repository.git
           ---------1-------- ---------2------------

• Legend
  • [1] Host string specified in ~/.ssh/config file for this account
  • [2] Path to the repository you want to clone