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Popoola Temilorun
Popoola Temilorun

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🔐 Managing Multiple GitHub Accounts with SSH: Personal & Work Setup Guide

#git #github #ssh #developer

If you've ever struggled to juggle your personal and work GitHub accounts on the same machine, this guide is for you.

In this step-by-step tutorial, you'll learn how to:

✅ Generate SSH keys for different GitHub accounts
✅ Configure SSH with aliases for each identity
✅ Clone repositories using SSH without constant authentication issues

Let’s dive in 👇

1. Generate SSH Keys for Personal and Work GitHub Accounts

Start by creating two separate SSH keys—one for each GitHub account.

# Personal GitHub account
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "[email protected]" -f ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 

# Work GitHub account
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "[email protected]" -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa_work
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📝 Notes:

  • The -f flag specifies the filename.
  • Use meaningful filenames like id_ed25519 and id_rsa_work for clarity.

2. Add Your Public Keys to GitHub

Copy the contents of each public key and add them to their respective GitHub accounts:

# Display the public key
cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub      # Personal
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa_work.pub     # Work
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Then:

  1. Go to your GitHub Settings > SSH and GPG keys
  2. Click "New SSH Key"
  3. Paste the key content and save

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Repeat this process for both personal and work accounts.

3. Configure the SSH Config File for Multiple Identities

Create or update your ~/.ssh/config file to define aliases for each account:

# Personal GitHub
Host github-personal
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

# Work GitHub
Host github-work
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_work
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🛠️ You can edit this file using your favorite text editor:

code ~/.ssh/config    # VS Code
nano ~/.ssh/config    # Terminal editor
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4. Test Your SSH Connections

Verify your setup with:

ssh -T git@github-personal
ssh -T git@github-work
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✅ You should see:

Hi your-username! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access.
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5. Clone Repositories Using SSH Aliases

Now you can clone repos with the correct identity by using the aliases:

# Personal repo
git clone git@github-personal:your_personal_username/repo.git

# Work repo
git clone git@github-work:your_work_org/repo.git
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No more switching keys or editing global settings!

6. Set Local Git User Info for Work Repositories

To ensure your work commits use the correct email and name:

cd path/to/work-repo

git config user.name "Your Work Name"
git config user.email "[email protected]"
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This updates the local .git/config file and overrides the global config.

🔍 Check your Git identity:

git config user.name
git config user.email
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🎉 You're All Set!

With this setup, you can seamlessly manage multiple GitHub accounts on one machine using SSH. It's a clean and secure way to avoid authentication conflicts and commit with the correct identity every time.

📌 TL;DR

  • Use different SSH keys for personal and work accounts
  • Define aliases in ~/.ssh/config
  • Clone repos using the correct alias
  • Set local Git user info per project

💬 Got questions or a better SSH setup? Connect on LinkedIn

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