Multiple GitHub Accounts Using Different SSH keys

This assumes that you have already created different SSH keys to be used for your GitHub accounts.

Here is how to create an SSH key for a GitHub account.

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "your_email@example.com"

There are a few things to do to be able to use different SSH keys for different GitHub accounts.

1. Create or edit the config file in ~/.ssh directory.
2. Edit the .git/config files of each involved git repository.
3. Add public SSH keys to GitHub accounts.

SSH Directory

Create or edit the config file in ~/.ssh directory and the following to the file.

Host github.com-one
    HostName github.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/github_dutertetimes_protonmail_rsa

Host github.com-two
    HostName github.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/github_rmaicle_gmail_rsa

Unique Host entries will be used in the <repository>.git/config file for each corresponding repository. IdentityFile of each entry corresponds to the SSH key you wanted to use for the corresponding Host.

git Repository configuration file

Edit the .git/config files of each involved git repository. Add the following lines or edit if it already exists. You will be using the host entry label specified in the ~/.ssh/config file.

[remote "origin"]
    url = git@github.com-one:<account>/<repository>.git
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

gist Repository configuration file

The only difference here is that the <account> is not specified in the URL.

[remote "origin"]
    url = git@github.com-one:<repository>.git
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

Reference

• Multiple SSH Keys settings for different github account
• Generating an SSH key