Trusted answers to developer questions
How to manage multiple Github accounts from a single machine
Many of us have encountered a situation where you need to manage multiple Github accounts from a single computer – You may have two Github accounts, one related to work and the other for personal repositories.
To achieve this, all it takes is a very simple combination of ssh and git config. The below steps are meant for LINUX/UNIX users.
- Set up SSH keys
Two different SSH keys need to be set up for the two accounts.
$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "work.emailid"Generating public/private rsa key pair.Enter file in which to save the key (/home/user/.ssh/id_rsa):Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):Enter same passphrase again:Your identification has been saved in /home/user/.ssh/id_rsa.Your public key has been saved in /home/user/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
Create a second key for the personal Github account. Make sure that when you are prompted for the filename when generating the SSH keys for the second account, you give the appropriate filename.
$ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "personal.emailid"Generating public/private rsa key pair.Enter file in which to save the key (/home/user/.ssh/id_rsa): /home/user/.ssh/id_rsa_personalEnter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):Enter same passphrase again:Your identification has been saved in /home/user/.ssh/id_rsa_personal.Your public key has been saved in /home/user/.ssh/id_rsa_personal.pub.
- Add the SSH key to your Github account.
- On your GitHub account, go to your Account Settings.
- Click “SSH Keys”, then “Add SSH key”.
- Paste your key into the “Key” field and add a relevant title.
- Click “Add key” and enter your Github password to confirm.
- Repeat this step for your other account with the appropriate keys.
- Create an SSH configuration file to manage the two separate keys.
- The touch command will create the SSH config file if it doesn’t exist.
- Add the content present in
ssh-config-file.shto the file on your system.
ssh-config-touch.sh
ssh-config-file.sh
# Default GitHubHost personal-github.comHostName github.comUser gitPreferredAuthentications publickeyIdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_personal# Work GitHubHost github.comHostName github.comUser gitPreferredAuthentications publickeyIdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Once you save this file, you need to configure your git repos on local accordingly.
- Setup your repo
Replace thegit@github.compart in the remote origin of all your personal repositories togit@personal-github.com– and that’s it!
From now on, the appropriate user account will be used when pushing to these repositories.
RELATED TAGS
general
CONTRIBUTOR
Anjana ShankarAttributions:
- undefined by undefined
TRENDING TOPICS
Did you find this helpful?