Setting multiple git repos with SSH key

24 Jun 2019

Creating a new SSH key

We will be needing two keys. Type the following in terminal to genrate a SSH key.

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "your-email@example.com"

This will prompt you to enter file in which to save the key. Repeat this twice. Note the give different name according to your convenience to identity each key for your repo. Lets say you named keys as:

repo1key
repo2key

Registering your new SSH key

eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"

ssh-add ~/.ssh/repo1key
ssh-add ~/.ssh/repo2key

Deploy your key to Github

Setting » Deploy keys » Add deply key

Enter title and copy paste the content of the public key generated at ~/.ssh/ to key field. Click Add key.
Repeat this same step to add public key on the other repo too. Public keys will have extenstion .pub, your corresonding public keys will be repo1key.pub and repo2key.pub.

Create a git config file

ssh-add ~/.ssh/config

Here is an example for your ~/.ssh/config file

Host repo1.github.com
HostName github.com 
IdentityFile /home/yourname/.ssh/repo1key
IdentitiesOnly yes

Host repo2.github.com
HostName github.com 
IdentityFile /home/yourname/.ssh/repo2key
IdentitiesOnly yes

These four line entry will differ for each repo you want to setup.

Clone repo

Get the Clone with SSH url, it will look like: git@github.com@yourgitname/repo1.git

This url can be used for standard SSH key but as we have defined two different Host in ~/.ssh/config file, you should use the following.

git@repo1.github.com@yourgitname/repo1.git
git@repo2.github.com@yourgitname/repo2.git

Now you can clone your repos

git clone git@repo1.github.com@yourgitname/repo1.git
git clone git@repo2.github.com@yourgitname/repo2.git