Multiple Gitlab accounts with multiple ssh keys

multiple-keys-gitlab.md

Gitlab won't allow reuse of a public ssh key for multiple accounts. To get around this you need to create a second ssh key for the second account.

Create or modify your ~/.ssh/config file:

# normal                                                                                                                                                                  
Host gitlab.com-work_username
     HostName gitlab.com
     PreferredAuthentications publickey
     IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

# second                                                                                                                                                                  
Host gitlab.com-personal_username
     HostName gitlab.com
     PreferredAuthentications publickey
     IdentityFile ~/.ssh/second_key

Check that both authenticate correctly with Gitlab:

ssh -T [email protected]_username
ssh -T [email protected]_username

Then in the repo you want to use the second account for, edit the .git/config file:

[remote "origin"]
        url = [email protected]_username:group-name/repo-name.git

Added the -personal_username after gitlab.com

---

To clone the repo initially you can use:

GIT_SSH_COMMAND='ssh -i ~/.ssh/<second_private_key> -o IdentitiesOnly=yes' git clone <repo_url.git>

What if it doesn't work for me? Both of the accounts doesn't authenticate

Thanks for this. If you're going through the trouble of making the Host entries in ~/.ssh/config, you could set User to git, then it's not needed on the command line or in the git remote config

Worked, when I changed PreferredAuthentications publickey to User git

Why we don't need to also add -work_username to the remote url for the work repos?

many thanks 👍

Thank you so mush.

Thanks you.