Configure multiple SSH keys for different GitHub accounts in Git.

Generate two SSH keys, add them to the GitHub accounts, and set up ~/.ssh/config to associate each key with the corresponding account.

Data Science
github
git
Author

Sougata Maity

Published

August 1, 2023

To connect SSH keys for two separate GitHub accounts (one personal and another professional) on your local desktop, we can follow these steps:

  1. Generate SSH Keys: First, we need to generate SSH keys for each GitHub account. Open a terminal or command prompt on our local machine and run the following command, replacing “your_email@example.com” with the email associated with each GitHub account:

    ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_email@example.com"

    This command generates a new SSH key pair (public and private keys) for each email address you provide.

  2. Save SSH Keys: When prompted, we can choose the location to save the SSH keys. By default, the keys are saved in the ~/.ssh directory with names like id_ed25519 for the private key and id_ed25519.pub for the public key. Now we have two pairs of keys for each GitHub account.

  3. Add SSH Keys to GitHub Accounts:

    • Log in to your personal GitHub account in a web browser.
    • Go to “Settings” > “SSH and GPG keys”.
    • Click on “New SSH key”.
    • Open the public key file id_ed25519.pub from your personal account’s SSH key pair (usually located in ~/.ssh) and copy its content.
    • Paste the content into the “Key” field on GitHub and give the key a descriptive title (e.g., “Personal GitHub Key”).
    • Click “Add SSH key” to save it.

    Repeat the same process for your professional GitHub account, adding the public key from the other SSH key pair.

  4. Configure SSH Config File: To make sure your SSH client uses the correct key for each GitHub account, you can create or edit your ~/.ssh/config file. Open the file in a text editor and add the following configuration:

    # Personal GitHub account
Host github.com-personal
HostName github.com
User git
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

# Professional GitHub account
Host github.com-professional
HostName github.com
User git
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/other_id_ed25519

    Replace ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 with the path to your personal private key and ~/.ssh/other_id_ed25519 with the path to your professional private key.

  5. Use SSH URLs for Repositories: Now, when we want to clone or interact with repositories associated with each GitHub account, we use SSH URLs with the custom hosts you defined in the ~/.ssh/config file. For example:

    # Personal GitHub account repository
git clone git@github.com-personal:user/repo.git

# Professional GitHub account repository
git clone git@github.com-professional:user/repo.git

With these steps, we should be able to use separate SSH keys for your personal and professional GitHub accounts on your local desktop. The ~/.ssh/config file will help your SSH client select the appropriate key based on the custom hosts you specified for each account.