How to Manage Multiple SSH Keys for GitHub, GitLab, etc.

Short tutorial on how to structure projects and setup multi-user Git SSH workflow.

Photo by Michel Didier Joomun

When using a single machine with multiple git accounts, you might encounter some obstacles with SSH setup. The easiest way to achieve a multi-user setup is to structure git repositories by respective directories, e.g.:

1projects
2├── work
3│   ├── enterprise-fiz-buz
4│   └── ...
5└── personal
6    ├── karolis.sh
7    └── ...

This short tutorial will help you set up SHH for such workflow.

Generating a new SSH key

To generate a new SSH key, use the provided template script (or check the docs):

1export EMAIL=[email protected]
2export SSH_FILE=$HOME/.ssh/id_rsa_work
3ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C $EMAIL -f $SSH_FILE
4ssh-add -K $SSH_FILE
5echo "🔽 PUBLIC KEY BELOW 🔽" && cat $SSH_FILE.pub
6pbcopy < $SSH_FILE.pub

What's left is to add the SSH key to your GitHub/GitLab/etc. account.

Multi-user Git SSH setup

The general idea is that you use specific ssh command based on your working directory with the help of git includes.

Update the ~/.gitconfig file:

1[user]
2  name = Karolis Šarapnickis
3  email = [email protected]
4[core]
5  sshCommand = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa
6[push]
7  default = current
8[includeIf "gitdir:~/projects/work/"]
9  path = ~/.gitconfig.work

And the ~/.gitconfig.work file:

1[user]
2  email = [email protected]
3[core]
4  sshCommand = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa_work

And that's it! Appropriate SSH setup will be used based on directory location, no extra actions are needed.