Step 1

Create the .ssh folder

Run these commands to create a new .ssh folder if you don't already have one:

mkdir ~/.ssh
chmod 700 ~/.ssh

Navigate to the newly created .ssh folder:

cd ~/.ssh

Step 2

Generate the SSH keys for all of your accounts by running the following command:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "[email protected]" -f "github-username"

-t rsa: Specifies the type of key to create as an RSA key.

-C "[email protected]": Specifies an optional comment.

-f "github-username": Specifies the filename of the key.

Make sure to add a strong passphrase (store it somewhere encrypted).

Step 3

Add the keys to the SSH agent

Run the following command:

ssh-add ~/.ssh/<github-username>

Enter the passphrase when asked.

You might not have the ssh agent running. If when running the command you get the following error: Could not open a connection to your authentication agent., make sure to start the agent with:

eval `ssh-agent -s`

It might also be possible that your key is not accessible by others: It is required that your private key files are NOT accessible by others. This private key will be ignored.. In this case, run the following command to each generated key:

chmod 600 ~/.ssh/<github-username>

The command sets the file permissions of the file ~/.ssh/<github-username> to allow only the owner of the file to read and write to the file.

Step 4

Add the generated SSH keys to the corresponding GitHub accounts

Make sure to copy the generated key's .pub. One way to do this is to run:

cat ~/.ssh/<github-username>.pub

Select the key with your cursor and copy the content.

Go to GitHub > Settings > SSH and GPG keys > New SSH key.

Add a title (for example, WSL2) and paste the generated key.

Step 5

Add a configuration file to your .ssh folder

Run the following command to create the configuration file and start writing on it directly in the terminal:

nano ~/.ssh/config

Add the following lines to the file, making sure to replace the placeholder text with your own:

Host <personal>
    HostName github.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/<personal>
    AddKeysToAgent yes

Host <work>
    HostName github.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/<work>
    AddKeysToAgent yes

Step 6

Add .gitconfig configurations per folder

Suppose you have two different GitHub accounts, one for work and one for personal.

You will have a different .gitconfig file for each root folder where your projects will be stored in respectively:

Personal ~/personal/.gitconfig:

[user]
    name = Personal
    email = [email protected]

Work ~work/.gitconfig:

[user]
    name = Work
    email = [email protected]

Now edit the global configuration file to point to these local configurations:

nano ~/.gitconfig

[includeIf "gitdir:~/work/"]
    path = ~/work/.gitconfig
[includeIf "gitdir:~/personal/"]
    path = ~/personal/.gitconfig

Step 7

Cloning a repository

To clone a repository, run the following command:

git clone git@<added-username>:<owner-username>/<repo-name>.git

For example, if one of my usernames is personal and I want to clone the repository my-repo from the owner my-owner, I would run:

git clone git@personal:my-owner/my-repo.git