How to use different SSH Keys for different Bitbucket (git) Repositories
#git#bitbucket#ssh#github
Shane McGowan

Shane McGowan @shane

About: Burned out web dev

Location:
Ireland
Joined:
Jul 19, 2017

How to use different SSH Keys for different Bitbucket (git) Repositories

Publish Date: Aug 2 '20
48 5

Bitbucket doesn't allow you to use the same SSH Key on more than one account. This means if you have more than 1 account but need to access the repositories on both (in my case a work account and a personal account) you will need to configure your SSH agent to allow you to choose which SSH Key to use when cloning over SSH.

Navigate to your SSH Directory

cd ~/.ssh
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Ensure SSH Agent is running

eval $(ssh-agent)
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Create your SSH Keys

# Run the following replacing EMAIL_ADDRESS with the email address associated with your bitbucket account
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "EMAIL_ADDRESS"

# When prompted to enter a file name, enter a name to help you differentiate your two keys
Enter file in which to save the key (/c/Users/shane/.ssh/id_rsa): key-1
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(optional) Remove previous SSH Keys for your SSH Agent (this does not delete the actual key from your ~/.ssh directory)

ssh-add -D
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Add your newly generated SSH Keys to your SSH Agent

ssh-add ~/.ssh/key-1
ssh-add ~/.ssh/key-2
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Check that your SSH Keys have been added

ssh-add -l

# Sample output
4096 SHA256:Mo+oiomJASfjlksc6Qj0KcQpUXRVpyvsEIHdXNYDL1c user@website1.com (RSA)
4096 SHA256:6Jt908009upoASFjjkljsflkj9iaGebl7pNr6vuezPI user@website2.com (RSA)
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Create your SSH Config file

touch config
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The format of our SSH Config

Host bitbucket-key-1 # Friendly name
  HostName bitbucket.org # The server we opening the SSH connection with
  User git # The SSH user (which for bitbucket is git eg. git@bitbucket.org)
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa # The private key file
  IdentitiesOnly yes # Tells SSH to only use keys provided by IdentityFile above
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Create your different SSH Configs

# Bitbucket - SSH Key 1
Host bitbucket-key-1
  HostName bitbucket.org  
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/key-1-id_rsa
  IdentitiesOnly yes

# Bitbucket - SSH Key 2
Host bitbucket-key-2
  HostName bitbucket.org
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/key-2-id_rsa
  IdentitiesOnly yes
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Important At this point, reload your terminal

Now when cloning via SSH we replace the usual host name (bitbucket.org) with our new "friendly" name

# Usual format
git clone USER@HOST:ACCOUNT_NAME/REPOSITORY_NAME.git
# Example
git clone git@bitbucket.org:username/repository.git

# Format using our new SSH Host config (replace bitbucket.org with the user friendly host name from our .config file)
git clone git@bitbucket-key-1:username/repository.git
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Comments 5 total

  • Sorin Dediu
    Sorin DediuAug 2, 2020

    Thanks, I was looking for something similar.
    Great article!

  • Neeraj Goswami
    Neeraj GoswamiAug 3, 2020

    Great article. There is an alternative to creating a SSH config file. Through your terminal you can tell any github repo to point to a particular ssh key file. just set sshcommand for that repo.

    git -c core.sshCommand="ssh -i private_key_file" clone host:repo.git

    git config core.sshCommand 'ssh -i private_key_file'

    • Shane McGowan
      Shane McGowanAug 3, 2020

      Cool! Do you know if there is a way to choose your SSH Key for use with git clone when first cloning the repo?

      • Neeraj Goswami
        Neeraj GoswamiSep 8, 2020

        yes it is git clone -c core.sshCommand="ssh -i ~/.ssh/your-ssh-fileName" git@github.com:orgname/repo.git

    • Bashar Al-Abdulhadi
      Bashar Al-AbdulhadiJul 31, 2021

      you just made my day, thank you!

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