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How To Work With Multiple Github Accounts on your PC
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work-with-multiple-github-accounts.md

How To Work With Multiple Github Accounts on a single Machine

Let suppose I have two github accounts, https://github.com/rahul-office and https://github.com/rahul-personal. Now i want to setup my mac to easily talk to both the github accounts.

NOTE: This logic can be extended to more than two accounts also. :)

The setup can be done in 5 easy steps:

Steps:

  • Step 1 : Create SSH keys for all accounts
  • Step 2 : Add SSH keys to SSH Agent
  • Step 3 : Add SSH public key to the Github
  • Step 4 : Create a Config File and Make Host Entries
  • Step 5 : Cloning GitHub repositories using different accounts

Step 1

Create SSH keys for all accounts

First make sure your current directory is your .ssh folder.

     $ cd ~/.ssh

Syntax for generating unique ssh key for ann account is:

     ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "your-email-address" -f "github-username"

here,

-C stands for comment to help identify your ssh key

-f stands for the file name where your ssh key get saved

Now generating SSH keys for my two accounts

     ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "[email protected]" -f "github-rahul-office"
     ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "[email protected]" -f "github-rahul-personal"

Notice here rahul-office and rahul-work are the username of my github accounts corresponding to my_office_email@gmail.com and my_personal_email@gmail.com email ids respectively.

After entering the command the terminal will ask for passphrase, leave it empty and proceed.

Passphrase Image

Now after adding keys , in your .ssh folder, a public key and a private will get generated.

The public key will have an extention .pub and private key will be there without any extention both having same name which you have passed after -f option in the above command. (in my case github-rahul-office and github-rahu-personal)

Added Key Image


Step 2

Add SSH keys to SSH Agent

Now we have the keys but it cannot be used until we add them to the SSH Agent.

     ssh-add -K ~/.ssh/github-rahul-office
     ssh-add -K ~/.ssh/github-rahul-personal

You can read more about adding keys to SSH Agent here.


Step 3

Add SSH public key to the Github

For the next step we need to add our public key (that we have generated in our previous step) and add it to corresponding github accounts.

For doing this we need to:

1. Copy the public key

 We can copy the public key either by opening the github-rahul-office.pub file in vim and then copying the content of it.

     vim ~/.ssh/github-rahul-office.pub
     vim ~/.ssh/github-rahul-personal.pub

OR

We can directly copy the content of the public key file in the clipboard.

     pbcopy < ~/.ssh/github-rahul-office.pub
     pbcopy < ~/.ssh/github-rahul-personal.pub

2. Paste the public key on Github

  • Sign in to Github Account
  • Goto Settings > SSH and GPG keys > New SSH Key
  • Paste your copied public key and give it a Title of your choice.

OR


Step 4

Create a Config File and Make Host Entries

The ~/.ssh/config file allows us specify many config options for SSH.

If config file not already exists then create one (make sure you are in ~/.ssh directory)

     touch config

The commands below opens config in your default editor....Likely TextEdit, VS Code.

     open config

Now we need to add these lines to the file, each block corresponding to each account we created earlier.

     #rahul-office account
     Host github.com-rahul-office
          HostName github.com
          User git
          IdentityFile ~/.ssh/github-rahul-office

     #rahul-personal account
     Host github.com-rahul-personal
          HostName github.com
          User git
          IdentityFile ~/.ssh/github-rahul-personal

Step 5

Cloning GitHub repositories using different accounts

So we are done with our setups and now its time to see it in action. We will clone a repository using one of the account we have added.

Make a new project folder where you want to clone your repository and go to that directory from your terminal.

For Example: I am making a repository on my personal github account and naming it TestRepo Now for cloning the repo use the below command:

    git clone [email protected]{your-username}:{owner-user-name}/{the-repo-name}.git

    [e.g.] git clone [email protected]:rahul-personal/TestRepo.git

Finally

From now on, to ensure that our commits and pushes from each repository on the system uses the correct GitHub user — we will have to configure user.email and user.name in every repository freshly cloned or existing before.

To do this use the following commands.

     git config user.email "[email protected]"
     git config user.name "Rahul Pandey"
     
     git config user.email "[email protected]"
     git config user.name "Rahul Pandey"

Pick the correct pair for your repository accordingly.

To push or pull to the correct account we need to add the remote origin to the project

     git remote add origin [email protected]:rahul-personal
     
     git remote add origin [email protected]:rahul-office

Now you can use:

     git push
     
     git pull

P.S:
If this gist has been helpful to you, kindly consider leaving a star.
If you'd like, let's connect on LinkedIn and build a supportive community together.

@rileyhemp
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Legend thank you

@zanonjonas-codes
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zanonjonas-codes commented Feb 5, 2024 •
edited
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A better way IMO

I created one ssh key for each account like in this gist.
Then used this to have different .gitconfig files (global, work, personal): https://dev.to/equiman/how-to-use-multiple-users-with-git-2e9l
Tks @anteromano

And in each "local" (work/personal) .gitconfig I added:

[core]
    sshCommand = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal -F /dev/null

[core]
    sshCommand = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work -F /dev/null

Now I just need to git pull and push and will go to where I want depending the parent directory I am.
I think it's better.

@zanonjonas-codes
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zanonjonas-codes commented Feb 5, 2024 •
edited
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@badsyntaxx I think this way is less retarded xD

@darguelles-am
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Modify your ~/.gitconfig to avoid changing origins

[url "[email protected]:company_github_account/"]
    insteadOf = [email protected]:company_github_account/

@RabeezRiaz
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A better way IMO

I created one ssh key for each account like in this gist. Then used this to have different .gitconfig files (global, work, personal): https://dev.to/equiman/how-to-use-multiple-users-with-git-2e9l Tks @anteromano

And in each "local" (work/personal) .gitconfig I added:

[core]
    sshCommand = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal -F /dev/null

[core]
    sshCommand = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work -F /dev/null

Now I just need to git pull and push and will go to where I want depending the parent directory I am. I think it's better.

This is the way. Set this up just now and it works fantastically. Only thing to keep in mind is that I need to create my random projects in my specified 'personal work' folder and not throw them on the desktop; which all things considered is a bonus advantage of this method.

@melkishengue
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A better way IMO

I created one ssh key for each account like in this gist. Then used this to have different .gitconfig files (global, work, personal): https://dev.to/equiman/how-to-use-multiple-users-with-git-2e9l Tks @anteromano

And in each "local" (work/personal) .gitconfig I added:

[core]
    sshCommand = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal -F /dev/null

[core]
    sshCommand = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work -F /dev/null

Now I just need to git pull and push and will go to where I want depending the parent directory I am. I think it's better.

Awesome, works like a charm! thank you

@clarkbrendenj
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A better way IMO

I created one ssh key for each account like in this gist. Then used this to have different .gitconfig files (global, work, personal): https://dev.to/equiman/how-to-use-multiple-users-with-git-2e9l Tks @anteromano

And in each "local" (work/personal) .gitconfig I added:

[core]
    sshCommand = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal -F /dev/null

[core]
    sshCommand = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work -F /dev/null

Now I just need to git pull and push and will go to where I want depending the parent directory I am. I think it's better.

I might be misunderstanding this method but doesn't this also require a clone of each project? One in each directory (work/personal) each with its own .gitconfig file?

@Pipetr
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Pipetr commented Mar 13, 2024

Awesome, nice, and clear, thanks this helps me a lot!

@jabafett
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jabafett commented Jun 1, 2024

literally just use a bash script to kill and start ssh agent then reconnect and change your git config values....you can even make one script to ask which account to use but i am just using two different scripts

@rafaelcascalho
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Great guide man! Thanks

@davepatterson
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This post was very helpful but on my mac I also needed to add a few alias commands to my shell profile in order to smoothly change company/personal git.

company git

alias u_git='git -c user.name="David Max" -c user.email="[email protected]"'

personal git

alias p_git='git -c user.name="David Max" -c user.email="[email protected]"'

refresh ssh (sometime needs to be called when swapping between different gits)

alias r_ssh='eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"'

Then, for example, you can easily pull from your personal git using p_git pull.

@fguillen-getsafe
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fguillen-getsafe commented Jul 4, 2024 •
edited
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I tried the .gitconfig approach and it doesn't work for me. It keeps selecting the user that is not:

> cat .gitconfig 
[core]
    sshCommand = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa_personal -F /dev/null

[user]
	name = my_user_personal

> cat .git/config 
[core]
	repositoryformatversion = 0
	filemode = true
	bare = false
	logallrefupdates = true
	ignorecase = true
	sshCommand = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa -F /dev/null

[remote "origin"]
	url = [email protected]:my_user_personal/fantasy.git
	fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
[branch "main"]
	remote = origin
	merge = refs/heads/main
[pull]
	rebase = false
[user]
	name = my_user_personal

> cat ~/.ssh/config                       
cat: /Users/fernando.guillen/.ssh/config: No such file or directory

Whenever I try to push I see it is using the wrong user:

> git push
ERROR: Permission to my_user_personal/fantasy.git denied to my_user_work.
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

@rcodina-jelou
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A better way IMO

I created one ssh key for each account like in this gist. Then used this to have different .gitconfig files (global, work, personal): https://dev.to/equiman/how-to-use-multiple-users-with-git-2e9l Tks @anteromano

And in each "local" (work/personal) .gitconfig I added:

[core]
    sshCommand = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal -F /dev/null

[core]
    sshCommand = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work -F /dev/null

Now I just need to git pull and push and will go to where I want depending the parent directory I am. I think it's better.

ok, but what is dev/null?

@fguillen-getsafe
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It didn't work to me until I added the IdentitiesOnly:

# ~/.ssh/config

#myuser account
Host github.com
     HostName github.com
     User git
     IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
     IdentitiesOnly yes

#myuser-work account
Host github.com-myuser-work
     HostName github.com
     User git
     IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_work
     IdentitiesOnly yes

@fguillen-getsafe
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This command helped me to debug my tests:

GIT_SSH_COMMAND="ssh -v" git pull

@iamjayshree
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this is one of best posts on adding ssh keys. Thankyou!

@Geoffroy94
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Have followed this strictly and still getting error : remote: Write access to repository not granted.

@alphaGithub
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https://github.com/alphaGithub/multiple-github-accounts.git
This worked for me.

@jyan-micro1
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Thanks!

@Allan-Morales-Prado
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ssh-add -K ~/.ssh/github-Rahul-office
ssh-add -K ~/.ssh/github-Rahul-personal

-K option for what, that's necessary?
I've installed OpenSSH for Windows and run it on Windows PowerShell:

ssh-add -K ...\private-key-file-name

But this command returns:
unknown option -- K

@lakshmadu
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when you run the following command(step 2) if you get error like this, you can use this solution:-

$ ssh-add -K ~/.ssh/{yourusername}

Error:- Could not open a connection to your authentication agent.

Solution :- The error message you're seeing, "Could not open a connection to your authentication agent," typically occurs when the SSH agent isn't running or the connection to the agent isn't correctly established. To resolve this issue, you can try the following steps:

  1. Start the SSH agent by running eval $(ssh-agent -s) in your terminal.
  2. Then, add your SSH key again using ssh-add ~/.ssh/lakshmadu.

This should allow you to add the key without encountering the error.

@youfoundmalik
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FOR EXISTING PROJECTS: To push or pull to the correct account we need to reset the remote origin of the project
git remote set-url origin git@github-account-profile:username/repo-name.git

@RoydBOL
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RoydBOL commented Sep 4, 2024

Thankyou so much for the blog, save me so much of time.

@imgustavo
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Thank you so much for this. Again and again

@imgustavo
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[core]
sshCommand = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work -F /dev/nul

thats only for mac

@ahmadmohammadirad2006
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Really clear explanation
Thanks

@fguillen
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This is gold

@EJEASIntercom
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I've always wanted to use multiple Github Accounts on my computer, and now I finally found a way, thank you. EJEAS

@soumyadeepsp
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You're a f*cking life-saver legend brooooooo

@yayahc
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yayahc commented Nov 26, 2024

Work fine thank u bro

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