Set up multiple git user accounts on your machine per repository

Nov 2018

Multiple SSH Keys for different github accounts

generate and add ssh keys for both users user1 and user2

user1
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "<user1@email.com>"
/home/user/.ssh/id_user1

user2
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "<user2@email.com>"
/home/user/.ssh/id_user2

sshconfig ~/.ssh/config

# default account identity - set to user1
Host github.com
    HostName github.com
    User git
    IdentityFile /home/user/.ssh/id_user1

# explicit account identity - user1
Host github.com-user1
    HostName github.com
    User git
    IdentityFile /home/user/.ssh/id_user1

# explicit account identity - user2
Host github.com-user2
    HostName github.com
    User git
    IdentityFile /home/user/.ssh/id_user2

reset all global git settings

git config --global user.useConfigOnly true
git config --global --unset-all user.name
git config --global --unset-all user.email

set the repo

• clone a repo

• set repo level .git/.gitconfig, eg:

git config user.name "user1"
git config user.email "user1l@email.com"

• to explicitly use a user specific setting update the remote to

git clone git@github.com-user1:user1/repo.git

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1. Last Updated: 2018-11-02 ↩