This is more of a quick tutorial that I am writing for myself so that I do not forget how to use multiple SSH keys with github easily.
When working with multiple github accounts, it is usually preferable to have multiple SSH keys over using password authentication (also often disabled for security reasons).
This can be a problem, especially if you are working with organizations that require separate accounts for security reasons (such as if a freelancer).
As always, the first step is to create your keys, in this case, I'm going to call them personal and work for clarity, but the names can be anything.
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "username@personal.com" -f
~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "username@work.com"
-f ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work
Once the keys have been generated, you can add them as identities with the
ssh-add [file] command which does the heavy lifting for us.
If you get an error mentioning that it cannot connect to the agent, you can
force it to start with: eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
Then inside ~/.ssh/config add in the following entries
HostName github.com User git IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal
Host github-work
HostName github.com User git IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work
After that, it is just a matter of configuring the remote for your secondary ID to use the following and then git will automatically use the correct identity with it.
git clone git@github-work:workusername/myrepo.git git config set
remote.origin.url git@github-work:workusername/myrepo.git
Happy githubbing future me! I know you'll forget how to do it. That's why I'm writing this down now!!!