# navigating to the ssh directory, run the following command.
cd .ssh/
# Generate SSH key for each GitHub account
ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "your_name@email.com"
id_rsa_personal
ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "your_name@organization_email.com"
id_rsa_work
ls ~/.ssh
cat id_rsa_personal.pub
Copy the SSH key and then sign in to your GitHub account.
Follow the steps below to add an SSH key to your GitHub account:
On your GitHub, navigate to Settings.
Choose SSH and GPG keys - Gnu Privacy Guard (GPG) is an encryption technique that allows secure information sharing among parties.
Hit on the New SSH Key button, give it a significant Title and paste the Key.
Finally, click the Add SSH key button.
open your git config fle if it exists
~/.ssh/config
If it exists, you can edit it, or else it can be created using this command:
touch config
nano config
in nano config
# Personal account, - the default config
Host github.com-"type your personal github username"
HostName github.com
User git
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_personal
# Work account
Host github.com-"type your organization github username"
HostName github.com
User git
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_work
hit Ctrl X to save and close nano
Done!!#1. Generating the SSH keys
# Before generating an SSH key, we can check to see if we have any existing SSH keys: ls -al ~/.ssh This will list out all existing public and private key pairs, if any.
$ ssh-keygen -t rsa
$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "email@work_mail.com" -f "id_rsa_work_user1"
# We have two different keys created:
$ ~/.ssh/id_rsa
$ ~/.ssh/id_rsa_work_user1
# 2. Adding the new SSH key to the corresponding GitHub account
# Copy the public key pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub and then log in to your personal GitHub account:
#3 . Registering the new SSH Keys with the ssh-agent
#To use the keys, we have to register them with the ssh-agent on our machine. Ensure ssh-agent is running using the command eval "$(ssh-agent -s)".
# Add the keys to the ssh-agent like so:
$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa_work_user1
# 4. Creating the SSH config File
$ cd ~/.ssh/
$ touch config # Creates the file if not exists
$ code config # Opens the file in VS code, use any editor
# copy and paste content change it to your info
# Personal account, - the default config
Host github.com
HostName github.com
User git
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
# Work account-1
Host github.com-work_user1
HostName github.com
User git
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_work_user1
#5. One active SSH key in the ssh-agent at a time
#This approach doesn’t require the SSH config rules. Rather we manually ensure that the ssh-agent has only the relevant key attached at the time of any Git operation.
#ssh-add -l will list all the SSH keys attached to the ssh-agent. Remove all of them and add the one key you are about to use.
#If it’s to a personal Git account that you are about to push:
$ ssh-add -D #removes all ssh entries from the ssh-agent
$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa # Adds the relevant ssh key
# or
$ ssh-add -D
$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa_work_user1
#To list the config name and email in the local Git directory, do git config user.name and git config user.email. If it’s not found, update accordingly.
git config user.name "User 1" // Updates git config user name
git config user.email "user1@workMail.com"
# 6. While Cloning Repositories
# Repositories can be cloned using the clone command Git provides:
$ git clone git@github.com:personal_account_name/repo_name.git
$ git clone git@github.com-work_user1:work_user1/repo_name.git
#7. For Locally Existing Repositories
# If we have the repository already cloned:
$ git remote set-url origin git@github.com-worker_user1:worker_user1/repo_name.git
$ git remote add origin git@github.com-work_user1:work_user1/repo_name.git
# the initial commit to the GitHub repository:
git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit"
git push -u origin master
# We are done!