Use multiple git account on your mac

Sometimes developer facing problem on using multiple git account. In this article I will cover how we can use multiple git and gitlab account on a single mac.

Like you have 3 users one is “niamul” and 2nd one is “cssniam” at gitlab.com and 3rd one is at github.com with the following name “niamulrox”.

Now first generate SSK key with the following instruction : https://gitlab.com/help/ssh/README

Make sure when you will generate the SSK key then for diffrent diffrent user you have to store key at different different file like

IdentityFile /Users/Niamul/.ssh/id_rsa
IdentityFile /Users/Niamul/.ssh/id_rsa2
IdentityFile /Users/Niamul/.ssh/id_rsa3

After that create a config file at ~/.ssh/ with the following command

cd ~/.ssh/
touch config
nano config

And in config just add the following settings

Host niamul.gitlab.com   
    User git   
    Hostname gitlab.com   
    PreferredAuthentications publickey   
    IdentityFile /Users/Niamul/.ssh/id_rsa   
    
Host cssniam.gitlab.com   
    User git   
    Hostname gitlab.com   
    PreferredAuthentications publickey   
    IdentityFile /Users/Niamul/.ssh/id_rsa2   
    
Host niamulrox.github.com   
    User git   
    Hostname github.com   
    PreferredAuthentications publickey   
    IdentityFile /Users/Niamul/.ssh/id_rsa3

Now you have to delete cached keys with the following command

ssh-add -D

Next, you can check that your keys were added:

ssh -T git@niamul.gitlab.com
ssh -T git@cssniam.gitlab.com
ssh -T git@niamulrox.github.com

f you get success message then you are done with the multiple account SSH Key authentication

Now for every project you have to define your username and user mail with the following command

cd ~/project_location
git config user.name "niamul"
git config user.email "yourmail@mail.com"

Adding Remote path

When you will add your remote path from any project eigther github or gitlab in your local git project then you must have to follow a tricks to make it works with the different different user like If you get your remore repository url like this

git@gitlab.com:niamul/main-site-master.git

Then for the first user of gitlab you have to replace it with its hostname define in config like

git@niamul.gitlab.com:niamul/main-site-master.git

So actually domain will replace with the host like for the example I had replace “gitlab.com” with my first user host name “niamul.gitlab.com”. Make sure to use your own username. As demo I have used my own user name but you must need to replace with your own user name. Hope it will help you to use Use multiple git account on your mac.