One thing that’s given me headaches for too long was switching between my two Github accounts - work and personal - on the same computer. Today I decided to put an end to it, and it was as simple as ABC. Seriously, look.

A - SSH Keys Generation

I’m sure most people who are acquainted with git are familiar with this procedure. So I’ll simply link to very good instructions and leave you to it.

Note: If you wish to be compatible with this guide, name your private keys id_rsa_git_personal and id_rsa_git_work.

B - SSH Config File

Create a new file in ~/.ssh/config and pour all this content into it:

Host github.com-personal
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_git_personal

Host github.com-work
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_git_work

You don’t need to replace anything so long as you used my recommended names from above.

C - Specifying Your Remotes

For each repository, edit its .git/config file and make sure that:

• For personal-account repositories, the remote URL uses the SSH profile for the personal account, and your personal username:

[remote "origin"]
	url = github.com-personal:<your_personal_user_name>/<your_repo_name>.git

• For work-account repositories, the remote URL uses the SSH profile for the work account, and your work username:

[remote "origin"]
	url = github.com-work:<your_work_user_name>/<your_repo_name>.git

C’est tout. Now each repository knows which remote to connect to and which SSH key to use for authentication.

I can’t believe I had all those headaches.