Preface
In this article I’ll explain how to set up a SSH key, add it to you Github account and configure it locally.
Generating a new SSH key
Run the following command on a terminal to create a new private and public SSH key pair, replacing with your personal email account
ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "personal@mail.com" -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa_github
With this, two different files will be created on the folder ~/.ssh
~/.ssh/id_rsa_github
~/.ssh/id_rsa_github.pub
Adding the key to Github
Open the id_rsa_github.pub file and copy all its content.
Head to your Github account. At the top right corner, click on your profile picture then Settings. Click on SSH and GPG keys on the left side menu and then New SSH key.
Paste the public key that has been copied at the Key box, choose a title (i.e. windows-desktop) and click on the Add SSH key button.
Registering a SSH key
Start a SSH agent with
eval `ssh-agent -s`
Register the key by running
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa_github
Editing a config file
Create a configuration file that will add the different SSH keys you have for all git providers and emails that you will eventually create.
touch ~/.ssh/config // Create config file if it does not exist
code ~/.ssh/config . // Edit config file
The config file should look like this
# This is a comment
# Personal github account
Host github.com
HostName github.com
User git
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_github
Testing your SSH connection
After you’ve set up your SSH key and added it to your GitHub account, you can test your connection with
ssh -T git@github.com
You should see a warning like this
The authenticity of host 'github.com (IP ADDRESS)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is SHA256:nThbg6kXUpJWGl7E1IGOCspRomTxdCARLviKw6E5SY8.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?
Type yes and you should finally see the message
Hi username! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access.
Verify that the resulting message contains your username. If you receive a “permission denied” message, see Error: Permission denied (publickey).
After following the above steps, you should be able clone and edit your GitHub repositories on your local machine.
Afterword
The same process can be used to create multiple SSH keys and add them to different git providers, making sure to add new entries on the config file.
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