33.27 Git Multiple Users and SSH Keys

20200914

Consider the scenario where you might have multiple user accounts on a git server. Perhaps the git accounts are ktfred and ktmary on https://gitlab.com. Also, rather than both sharing your personal public key, you want each to have their own private/public key pairs.

First clone the remote repository:

git clone git@gitlab.com:kt/mykt.git

It is a public repository so anyone can clone it but not push to it.

Configure a local git username and email address to override any global values.

git config user.name "K T Mary"
git config user.email "ktmary@kt.com"
git config --list

Now create a new private/public key pair to access the repository as ktmary.

$ ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa_ktmary_gitlab -N "" -C ktmary@kt.com
$ cat  ~/.ssh/id_rsa_ktmary_gitlab.pub
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1...A4tHGD0= ktmary@kt.com

Copy the public key into SSH Keys under User Settings in gitlab. Then configure the local repository clone to use this public key.

git config core.sshCommand "ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa_ktmary_gitlab.pub -F /dev/null"

A push should then work.

git push

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