How to manage multiple GitHub & GitLab Accounts

How to manage multiple GitHub or GitLab accounts

We can communicate GitHub and GitLab Repository from our local machine by HTTPS and SSH. Suppose you have multiple GitHub or GitLab accounts and need all accounts to push and pull projects. Then it is boring to type username and password in every time. The best option is to add an SSH Key for each account then you don't need to type a username and password for every single push and pull. I am going to show the process of how to create and add an SSH key in this article.

GitHub

• It is always good practice to see the official documentation GitHub GitLab.

I am going to assume you have two user ID username1 and username2 which are registered with EmailID username1@example.com and username1@example.com in GitHub respectively.

Step -1 : Creating an SSH key for username1:

    ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "username1@example.com"

During creation of ssh key asked to location/filename and type a passphrase.Which will create two file one with filename and other with .pub extension.

To see the created file in .ssh folder if you have choose to store in there ls -a ~/.ssh/ .

Step - 2: Start the SSH and adding the generated Key:

eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Step - 3: Adding SSH Key in GitHub:

• LogIn into the GitHub Account with username1@example.com with password.

• Navigate to Settings > SSH Keys.

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• Ensure your key is listed. If not, paste the copied key and add it.

Step 4 : Verify the SSH Connection:

    ssh -T git@github.com

If everything is going perfect then you will see Hi username1! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access.

Now you are ready to communicate GitHub via SSH for usernam1 account.

• To activate SSH for username2 you need to perform all above four steps.

• Now create a config file by ~/.ssh/config inside of ~/.ssh/ directory location.

The content of config file :

# GitHub Username1 Account
Host github.com
    HostName github.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_username1

# GitHub Username2 Account
Host github-work
    HostName github.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_username2

• To clone a repository

  git clone https://github.com/username/repository.git
  

• To push from local repository to web repository

  echo "# Repository Name" >> README.md
  git init
  git add README.md
  git commit -m "first commit"
  git branch -M main
  git remote add origin git@github.com:username/repository.git
  git push -u origin main
  

• To check remote url for a repository

git remote -v

• To change HTTPS remote url to SSH remote url

  git remote set-url origin git@github.com:username/repository.git
  

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GitLab

Follow similar steps as above to set up SSH keys for GitLab accounts. The documentation for GitLab SSH keys can be found here.

Step 1: Creating an SSH key for username1

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "username1@example.com"

Step 2: Start the SSH agent and add the generated key

eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Step 3: Adding the SSH Key to GitLab

• Log in to your GitLab account with username1@example.com and your password.

• Navigate to User Settings > SSH Keys.

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• Paste the contents of your id_rsa.pub file into the "Key" field and save.

Step 4: Verify the SSH Connection

ssh -T git@gitlab.com

If everything is correct, you will see a message like:

Welcome to GitLab, @username1!

Step 5: Configuring Multiple SSH Keys

Create a config file at ~/.ssh/config with the following content:

# GitLab Username1 Account
Host gitlab.com
    HostName gitlab.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_username1

# GitLab Username2 Account
Host gitlab-work
    HostName gitlab.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_username2

Step 6: Using the Configured SSH Keys

To clone a repository:

git clone git@gitlab.com:username/repository.git

To push from the local repository to the web repository:

echo "# Repository Name" >> README.md
git init
git add README.md
git commit -m "first commit"
git branch -M main
git remote add origin git@gitlab.com:username/repository.git
git push -u origin main

To check the remote URL for a repository:

git remote -v

To change the HTTPS remote URL to the SSH remote URL:

git remote set-url origin git@gitlab.com:username/repository.git

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