SSH Setup for Multiple Github Accounts

Mar 1, 2020

2 minute read

Scenario: You’re starting at a new company, and they use GitHub for source control. This is nice, because you know GitHub. This is not nice, on the other hand, because you already use it for personal projects. Bad things can happen when you mix the personal and the professional, and you’d like to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Time for a second GitHub account!

This is great, until you want to keep working on your personal things at the same time. How on Earth can we make SSH behave properly?

TL;DR: Use this SSH configuration (usually in ~/.ssh/config):

# Assuming that you have the following SSH keys:
# 1. ~/.ssh/work_id_rsa
# 2. ~/.ssh/personal_id_rsa

Host personal.github.com
  HostName github.com
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/personal_id_rsa

Host github.com
  HostName github.com
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/work_id_rsa

Host *
  IgnoreUnknown UseKeychain,AddKeysToAgent
  UseKeychain yes
  AddKeysToAgent

When you want to clone personal things, do it like so:

git clone [email protected]:username/repo

When you want to clone work things, do it the usual way:

git clone [email protected]:username/repo

The way this works is that git, when cloning this way, uses ssh and gives it the URL to resolve. ssh checks the config, and sees if it has any special configuration for the URL. In this case, if it sees personal.github.com, it will know to use the hostname github.com, with your personal SSH key.

Conversely, if you just use [email protected]:..., ssh will know to use your work key instead.

The final config entry, Host *, is global configuration that configures SSH to use a so-called agent. In a nutshell, it means you won’t have to enter your keys’ passphrases over and over again. The “UseKeychain” config is mac-specific, so it’s important to IgnoreUnknown it if you want to use this on a non-mac system.

Make sure you ssh add -K path/to/key your keys, and run ssh add -A.

Hope this helps!

bendb