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Configuring Multiple Git Accounts on One Host

Regardless of how many Git accounts are added on a single host, the ultimate goal is to interact with remote repositories. Therefore, the first step in the configuration is to generate multiple SSH keys.

  • Since multiple Git accounts are allowed to log in on one host, the files storing SSH keys should not be duplicated; otherwise, the key of the former will be overwritten by the latter.
  • So the first step we need to take is still to generate the "ssh key", but the commands for generating other ssh keys are a bit different from the previous one:

Configuring multiple Git accounts on the same host can mainly be achieved through the following methods:

Method 1: Using SSH Keys​

  1. Generating SSH Keys: Generate an SSH key pair for each Git account:
ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "your_email@example.com"

When the system asks for the save location, you can specify different file names, such as:

/home/your_user/.ssh/id_rsa_github
/home/your_user/.ssh/id_rsa_gitlab
  1. Adding SSH Keys to the SSH Agent: Start the SSH agent and add the keys:
eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa_github
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa_gitlab

  1. Adding Public Keys to the Git Accounts: Add the public keys in ~/.ssh/id_rsa_github.pub and ~/.ssh/id_rsa_gitlab.pub to the corresponding Git accounts respectively.

  2. Configuring the SSH Configuration File: Create or edit the ~/.ssh/config file and add the following content:

Host github.com
    HostName github.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_github

Host gitlab.com
    HostName gitlab.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_gitlab

Method 2: Configuring Multiple Users via HTTPS​

  1. Setting User Information for Each Repository: Set the username and email address separately for each Git repository:
git config user.name "Your Name"
git config user.email "your_email@example.com"
  1. Entering Different Accounts When Pushing: When you push, you can specify different accounts:
git push https://username:token@github.com/username/repo.git

Method 3: Global and Repository-Level Configuration​

  1. Setting Global Configuration: You can configure an account globally:
git config --global user.name "Default User"
git config --global user.email "default@example.com"
  1. Overriding in Each Repository: Then use the local configuration to override the global settings in each specific repository:
git config user.name "Specific User"
git config user.email "specific@example.com"

Other Precautions​

  • Make sure to confirm the current Git user configuration before each operation:
git config user.name
git config user.email
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