Git and SSH on Linux

This article explains how to clone your git repo with SSH on Linux.

Authentication

Don’t forget that you will still need to authenticate with git by running:

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "you@example.com"

1. generate an ssh key

Paste this command in your terminal

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_email@example.com"

• You’ll be prompted to choose a file to save the key (default is ~/.ssh/id_ed25519)
• Press Enter to accept the default path.
• You can also set a passphrase for extra security. (or press enter for no passphrase) _{And you’ll also get a funy artwork :3}

2. Add the SSH Key to the SSH Agent

# Start ssh-agent in the background
eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"

# The actual command
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

3. copy the pub key

cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

4. copy SSH Key

open ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub in a text editor and copy it’s contents

5. Add the SSH Key to Your Git Host (GitHub example)

1. Go to GitHub → Settings → SSH and GPG keys
2. Click New SSH key
3. Paste your key and give it a name
4. Save

5. Use SSH to Clone Repositories

1. On the git repo page, under the blue or green clone / code button, it is default chosen HTTPS, select SSH instead
2. Clone the link
3. in your terminal, type git clone <paste the link> and press enter

6. Use multiple accounts

run nano ~/.ssh/config. you will see something like this:

Host github.com
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
  IdentitiesOnly yes

add your new ssh below it:

# Default
Host github.com
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
  IdentitiesOnly yes

# New account
Host github-accountname
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_accountname
  IdentitiesOnly yes

Save and close (Ctrl + O, then Enter, then Ctrl + X).

And then you can clone using the alias:

git clone git@github-accountname:accountname/github_repo.git

and you can then also set your username and mail for each repo:

git config user.name "username"
git config user.email "your_new_email@example.com"

or use --global to set a default.

And you can check per repo which credentials are used:

git config user.name
git config user.email