Multiple Accounts and SSH Keys

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Multiple SSH keys
Problem is, Bitbucket doesn’t allow you to use the same SSH key with more than one Bitbucket account. I still have my old work account to tidy up loose ends.

As GitHub explains you can generate an SSH key like so:

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cd ~/.ssh
ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "[email protected]"

You are then prompted for an optional password. After the key is generate you copy & paste it into your GitHub or Bitbucket account settings. On Mac OS X (10.8), which I’m using, copying to the clipboard is simple:

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pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

With multiple Bitbucket accounts (and I assume GitHub too) you need multiple SSH keys. To generate a second key with a different name:

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ssh-keygen -t rsa -f ~/.ssh/accountB -C "[email protected]"

To use multiple keys create a file at ~/.ssh/config with contents similar to:

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Host bitbucket.org
  User git
  Hostname bitbucket.org
  PreferredAuthentications publickey
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Host bitbucket.accountB
  User git
  Hostname bitbucket.org
  PreferredAuthentications publickey
  IdentitiesOnly yes
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/accountB

With this set up I can clone with my default key as Bitbucket suggests:

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git clone [email protected]:username/project.git

If I want to clone a repository from my second account I can alter the command to use the second SSH key I generated:

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git clone [email protected]:username/project.git

In fact, if I wanted to I could have a different SSH key for every account I have; GitHub, Bitbucket, or any other service that requires one.