GitHub multiple accounts: Can authenticate SSH with both accounts, but cannot clone repositories of one

Question

I'm on my work computer, which is already [successfully] configured to connect to our GitHub account and authenticate our commits using SSH and GPG keys, respectively. Before I began changing things, my original ~/.ssh/config file was this:

Host *
 AddKeysToAgent yes
 UseKeychain yes
 IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

To add my personal account, I generated a new SSH key (~/.ssh/id_rsa_personal), added the .pub part to my personal GitHub account, and modified my ~/.ssh/config file to the following:

# Default
Host *
 AddKeysToAgent yes
 UseKeychain yes

# Personal
Host github.com-PERSONAL
 HostName github.com
 User git
 PreferredAuthentications publickey
 IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_personal

# Work
Host github.com
 HostName github.com
 IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

After this change, I am still able to interact with my work account without a problem – nothing has changed. However, when I attempt to interact with my personal account using

git clone git@github-PERSONAL:nikblanchet/myrepository.git

, I am getting an error message:

Cloning into 'myrepository'...
ssh: Could not resolve hostname github-personal: nodename nor servname provided, or not known
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

To narrow down the issue, I decided to try a simple SSH authentication

ssh -T git@github.com-PERSONAL

, and, surprisingly, it worked!

Hi nikblanchet! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access.

(Running ssh -T git@github.com authenticated with my work account, as expected.)

So now I'm lost. Why can ssh -T resolve the hostname while git clone cannot? What did I miss?

This may help: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3225862/multiple-github-accounts-ssh-config See ssh-add - also, try exiting your shelling, opening a new one. — EdH, Nov 09 '17 at 22:25

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 10 '17 at 05:55

You URL should be:

github.com-PERSONAL:nikblanchet/myrepository.git

You tried first

git@github-PERSONAL:nikblanchet/myrepository.git

That is why it was not able to resolve github-PERSONAL, which is not in your config file.
github.com-PERSONAL is.

Note: no need to add the git@ part: your config file does specify the User git already.

GitHub multiple accounts: Can authenticate SSH with both accounts, but cannot clone repositories of one

1 Answers1