When working on the same machine with multiple projects linked to different GitHub/GitLab/BitBucket/etc. accounts, you may need to handle multiple usernames, email addresses, and SSH keys.
Usernames and emails
A manual solution can be to set the username and email address for each repository. However if you have numerous projects, it can be tedious and error-prone.
A more systemic solution is to manage your identities in a configuration file.
- Create or edit a file named
.gitconfigin your Home directory. - Since Git 2.13 you can use conditional includes, which link to different config files based on the projects directories. For instance:
- For each custom credential, create a
.gitconfigfile with the relevant parameters. For example, in~/work.gitconfig:
# Default credentials
[user]
name = my_username
email = me@email.com
# Work credentials
[includeIf "gitdir:~/work/"]
path = ~/work.gitconfig
# Side projects credentials
[includeIf "gitdir:~/side-projects/"]
path = ~/side.gitconfig[user]
name = work_username
email = me@corporate.comBeyond username and email, you can specify any additional git parameter in these files.
SSH keys
First, generate one SSH key per Git account, and add them to their GitHub/GitLab/BitBucket accounts. You can refer to this tutorial.
Your multiple SSH keys will be handled in a file named ~/.ssh/config. Create or edit the file, and write one entry per account, like this:
# Personal GitHub
Host github.com # Default GitHub host name
HostName github.com
User git
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
# Work Github
Host github.com-work # Alias host for your work GitHub account
HostName github.com
User git
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/work
# Personal GitLab
Host gitlab.com # No need for an alias if you only use one GitLab account
HostName gitlab.com
User git
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/gitlabIf you have multiple accounts by the same Git provider (like GitHub in this example), you need a different Host name for each account. In the above example, we replaced Host github.com with Host github.com-work for the GitHub work account.
Finally, you will have to change the remote URL with the alias Host name in the relevant repositories. For the GitHub work account in this example:
- When cloning a repository,
replace
git clone git@github.com:user/repo.gitwithgit clone git@github.com-work:user/repo.git - For an existing repository on your machine,
update the remote address with
git remote set-url origin git@github.com-work:user/repo.gitand check the change withgit remote -v.