Using Multiple SSH Keys

I use one computer for both my personal and business projects. This means I have multiple github accounts that I use on the computer. The problem with that is that I need multiple SSH keys each connecting to a different github account.

I needed a nice solution on how to use multiple ssh keys for github.

First create your 2 ssh keys

~/.ssh/id_rsa_personal
~/.ssh/id_rsa_work

Add both the keys

$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa_personal
$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa_work

Git allows you to customise this by using the git config file. In your ~/.ssh folder create a new file called config.

Inside this file you can paste the config on what key to use for a certain account.

Host github.com-personal
    HostName github.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_personal
Host github.com-work
    HostName github.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_work

When you clone your repo ensure that you set the username for that repo by changing the local config.

$ git config user.name "personal"
$ git config user.email "personal@gmail.com" 
$ git config user.name "work"
$ git config user.email "personal@gmail.com"

Originally published at https://paulund.co.uk.