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Sahil Verma
Sahil Verma

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Use Multiple GitHub Accounts on same machine with SSH

#github #ssh #git #programming

Learn how to manage multiple GitHub accounts on the same machine using SSH keys and SSH config.

1. Generate a new SSH key for each GitHub account 

# For personal account
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your-personal-email@example.com" -f ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal

# For work account
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your-work-email@example.com" -f ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work
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2. Add keys to the SSH agent 

eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work
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3. Add public keys to GitHub

Go to GitHub → Settings → SSH and GPG Keys for each account and add:

cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal.pub
cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work.pub
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4. Create or edit SSH config 

nano ~/.ssh/config # code ~/.ssh/config  to open on vs code
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Add this:

# Personal GitHub
Host github-personal
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal

# Work GitHub
Host github-work
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work
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5. Use correct GitHub alias when cloning 

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

# Work repo
git clone git@github-work:work-username/repo.git
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6. Set Git identity per project 

# Inside personal repo
git config user.name "Your Personal Name"
git config user.email "your-personal-email@example.com"

# Inside work repo
git config user.name "Your Work Name"
git config user.email "your-work-email@example.com"
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You can now work with multiple GitHub accounts on the same machine without conflicts.

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