Skip to content

SSH for github

How to configure multiple two or more deploy keys for different private github repositories on the same computer without using ssh-agent

Let's say I want to have a ssh key A for repo1 and ssh key b for repo2.

  1. Create a ssh pair keys for each repository
1
2
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_email@example.com"
# ed25519 is the algorithm

For the second key and the subsequent ones, you will need to specify a different name.

  • Private key should have permissions set to 600.

  • .ssh folder should have permissions set to 700.

  • Add your SSH keys to the ssh-agent. In my case 

1
2
3
4
5
# start the ssh-agent in the background
eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"

# add your ssh private key to the ssh-agent.
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

  1. Add your ssh public keys as deploy keys in the Settings tab of repo1 and repo2 .

  2. Edit .git/config file in both repositories.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
# For repo1
[remote "origin"]
        url = "ssh://git@repo1.github.com:username/repo1.git"

# For repo2
[remote "origin"]
        url = "ssh://git@repo2.github.com:username/repo2.git"
  1. For each repo set name and email
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
# navigate to your repo1
git config user.name "yourName1"
git config user.email "email1@domain.com"

# navigate to your repo2
git config user.name "name2"
git config user.email "email2@domain.com"
  1. Create a config file in .ssh to manage keys:
 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
# Default github account: username1
Host github.com/username1
   HostName github.com
   IdentityFile ~/.ssh/username1_private_key
   IdentitiesOnly yes

# Other github account: username2
Host github.com/username2
   HostName github.com
   IdentityFile ~/.ssh/username2_private_key
   IdentitiesOnly yes
  1. Make sure you don't have all credentials cached in your ssh agent
1
ssh-add -D
  1. Add new credentials to your ssh agent
1
2
ssh-add ~/.ssh/username1_private_key
ssh-add ~/.ssh/username2_private_key
  1. See added keys
1
ssh-add -l
  1. Test your conection
1
ssh -T git@github.com
Last update: 2023-05-02
Created: January 1, 2023 21:59:36