In this post, we will learn how to configure multiple github accounts on windows machine using SSH keys which is the most preferred way instead of HTTP authentication.
Here are the steps configure SSH keys in GITHUB. Let’s assume you have company and personal github account which you may need access to on your windows.
Configure GIT Hub account 1 with SSH Keys:
- Navigate to C:\Users\{userName}\.ssh. if folder is created, otherwise ignore it. ssh folder will be automatically created for you when you run ssh-keygen command
2. Open command prompt or gitbash which ever you comfortable.
3. Create ssh key file with with ssh-keygen command as shown in below. Leave empty value when you prompt for “Enter File in which to save”. It will create id_rsa file which is default name
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "[email protected] "Generating public/private rsa key pair. Enter file in which to save the key (/c/Users/jayaramp/.ssh/id_rsa):
4. Copy the content of id_rsa.pub file and paste it in your github ssh key settings. Logon to github.com with company account and navigate https://github.com/settings/profile
5. Access SSH details page: Profile ==> Setting ==> SSH and GPG Keys
6 Click on “New SSH Key” to add content of id_rsa.pub file
7. Add SSH Key by giving the Title as “MyCompanyKey” and paste the id_rsa.pub contents into the key text area.
8. Finally you configure SSH key and look like below
Now you can access company repositories with this account and by default id_rsa file will be loaded to communicate with github.com
Configure second GIT hub account with SSH key
As git clone, always refers id_rsa file then how to access personal github account. In this case, my personal user is jayaram509([email protected]) and create SSH key for this account
- Create SSH key for personal user “[email protected]” as shown below:
$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "[email protected]" Generating public/private rsa key pair. Enter file in which to save the key (/c/Users/jayaramp/.ssh/id_rsa): personal Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): Enter same passphrase again: Your identification has been saved in personal Your public key has been saved in personal.pub
2. In the Enter file name command, give name as personal and it creates SSH key with personal.pub follows as
3. Copy the SSH keys from personal.pub to jayaram509 github account as shown in below:
How to access personal GIT account now?
As shown in below, lets try to access the repo with [email protected]:jayaram509/helloworld-personal-repo.git
When you try to access the personal repository on your machine then by default it will load id_rsa instead of personal.pub
Create Config file in .ssh folder
- Navigate to again “C:\Users\jayaram\.ssh” folder
- create config file in .ssh folder as shown in below
Host github.com HostName github.com User git IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa Host github-personal-repo.com HostName github.com User git IdentityFile ~/.ssh/personal
Make sure that config file should be created of type File not with of .txt extension, as shown in below
Now, if you try to access personal account repository with the host name as “github-personal-repo.com” which is Host in above config file
with that, new personal git clone URL is : git@ github-personal-repo.com:jayaram509/helloworld-personal-repo.git
D:\GITDemo>ssh -T github.com Warning: Permanently added the RSA host key for IP address '13.234.176.102' to the list of known hosts. [email protected]: Permission denied (publickey). D:\GITDemo>ssh -T github-personal-repo.com [email protected]: Permission denied (publickey). D:\GITDemo>git clone [email protected]:jayaram509/helloworld-personal-repo.git Cloning into 'helloworld-personal-repo'... Enter passphrase for key '/c/Users/jayaramp/.ssh/personal': warning: You appear to have cloned an empty repository.
Hope this helps. Now can you access multiple GITHUB accounts on Windows
