Solving the problem of having a personal and a work GitHub account is really trivial without any extra tools. All you need is a dedicated SSH key for that GitHub account. (And why would you have a password for a ssh key on your personal machine?)
~/.ssh/config
Host github.com-work
HostName github.com
User git
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/work_id_rsa
IdentitiesOnly yes
Where basically `projects/` follow GitHub naming with $user/$repo, so I set the git identity based on all projects within that user, rather than repo-by-repo which would get cumbersome fast.
Then you just make sure you're in the right directory :)
This. I’ve seen so many tools solving problems that already have solutions lately because LLMs allow people to run off and “fix” the problem their way before they can a chance to discover existing, more appropriate solutions.
The next step of this problem space is: “when I’m working on project X, I often forget to change my GitHub user with Gitas” so now they need direnv or something to switch it for them. The original solution foresaw this - so is far more complete that Gitas already _and_ built into git itself.
But, LLMs, so here we are, slowly drowning in a growing ocean of software built by the unaware.
I use that approach. I also make sure to not set the [user] section in my main config (and only in the included files). That way if I'm operating outside of one of my user directories git commit fails due to having no user details.
Are there any good reasons to use multiple GitHub user accounts? GitHub organization membership and permissions are well designed in my experience, negating the need for multiple user accounts.
Consultants or professional services folks will be working in their company’s GitHub account and several clients. Requires managing lots of git/GitHub accounts
Even with enterprise SSO, the initial connect to GH can (is typically) "you" (just as you have the same driver license to show at the front desk when registering to visit a secured firm or random hotel), then you elevate "you" into the org through SSO, and what policies apply to you via your org can be 'governed' at the enterprise.
The idea behind this model is that no, you don't have to manage lots of those as you, you're just you, and each of those you aim to use has an elevation that entity controls instead of you controlling it.
This ultimately results in way less key material floating around, and you losing, leaking, or lousing up your own GH cred doesn't auto-give an attacker the SSO elevation.
• • •
Not incidentally, I have a slew of "accounts" given to me by companies that don't bother to make an org, they just invite individuals to repos or make individual accounts for their repo. I suppose it's cheaper in the short run. In the long run, these accounts are 90% still left active years to (no kidding) decade+ later. Seems a better idea to "don't do this." If you're a company, be an org.
> Are there any good reasons to use multiple GitHub user accounts?
Is there any good reasons not to separate what you work on into multiple GitHub accounts? Not to mention some people don't want all their projects attached to one profile, some people also develop in their free-time, and don't want to mix freetime/work projects under the same user account, for multiple reasons.
I use a pseudonym during my free time, so yes. Also my employer is requiring us to use company-specific GitHub accounts, so the decision is out of my hands anyway.
The host shenanigans are simpler addressed with `git config core.sshCommand` which overrides the default key and selects the desired one on a per repository level.
Doesn’t work for cloning, obviously. The way I handle it is I have ssh look at the hostname and path passed by git and decide which identity to use. This is very easy in openssh 10.0+ using the command matching syntax, and more difficult to varying degrees on earlier versions of openssh, depending on your OS.
> well if you have encrypted storage and already need password to get to it, secondary password is of little value
That's only true when your machine is powered off. If an attacker manages to yank files from your disk while it is running, that ssh-key password is the difference between "they stole my ssh key" and "they stole worthless random data".
> use hardware key for ssh
That's the real solution. I don't understand why people still store ssh keys on disk when hardware keys are simple, easy, and significantly more secure.
> That's the real solution. I don't understand why people still store ssh keys on disk when hardware keys are simple, easy, and significantly more secure.
At work, every place big enough to maybe care about this was so “enterprisey” and “cloudy” that I almost never use/used ssh anyway, even with tons of Linux systems all over the place. Pretty much only to talk to GitHub.
I lose stuff all the time. The idea of these things gives me anxiety. The first time I lost 15 minutes figuring out where I put my hardware key, before I could ssh in to do 20 seconds of running commands, I’d back out of the whole project and return to using a file on disk, guaranteed.
Files on disk are free, hardware keys cost money.
25 years as a backend-heavy programmer, sysadmin, and devops-sort (sometimes all at once, lol). I’ve still never even touched one of these devices, and have only rarely seen one.
Do you lose your keys? I just keep my main yubikey on my keychain. Never gets lost or else I'd be homeless. I keep a 2nd backup key in a secure place just in case, so I don't get locked out of my accounts if I get struck by lightning.
> hardware keys cost money
Barely. You can get u2f keys for $10-$20 which are usable with ssh. My yubikeys were $50 each (I have 2, one main key and one backup) which adds up to $100 but yubikeys are built like tanks, they'll last forever. I've had mine for the past 7 years and I have no reason to replace them. That's only $14/year so far for the pair of keys. Totally worth it for the knowledge that I could load every virus/trojan/keylogger known to man onto my computer and they still would be completely unable to steal my ssh+pgp keys.
For the folks looking at tools to help manage personal and work identities on the same computer: don't.
Never access personal accounts from a work computer or work accounts from a personal computer under any circumstances.
This goes for laptops, desktops, and especially cellphones.
If an employer asks that you violate the above, ask for a dedicated device owned by your employer to access a work account. If they refuse, that's a big red flag. "Oh just use your phone to check your email/slack" - 1. don't assume everyone has a cellphone and 2. if you want folks doing work on a device, pay for it.
Managing multiple personal accounts on computer A or multiple work accounts on computer B is totally fine.
As an aside, company general counsels might be shocked at how often their employees log in to slack/email/etc. from their personal cellphone: suddenly any and all company and customer intellectual property has a way to leave the network. And it's not even a "pull" from the employee as the other employees just "push" them messages.
Obviously it should be everywhere, for all tools needed to do your job, but it's especially clear for tech where nearly all large companies will also exert control over the device.
You can manage multiple ssh keys via your ssh config too. But this does seem to make things easier, I always end up fighting with this when I need to do it once every 3 years
It's actually about git account switching as far as I can tell, which does make sense, you can have multiple "git" users indeed. Maybe it's the wording that is wrong? Read "account" as "user" and it might make more sense :)
# in ~/.gitconfig
[includeIf "gitdir:/home/user/projects/embedding-shapes/"]
path = /home/user/.gitconfig-embedding-shapes
# in ~/.gitconfig-embedding-shapes
[user]
name = embedding-shapes
email = embedding-shapes@proton.me
[core]
sshCommand = ssh -i /home/user/.ssh/id_embedding-shapes
That's one of my git "accounts", currently I have four in total, one being my "real identity", other are pseudo-anonymous users.
I used to have a git post-checkout hook that set the repo identity based on the repo origin url [0] on checkout - maybe there's some post-clone hook these days, but 10 years ago when I wrote it there was only post-checkout hook.
This is nice! This was a problem I faced a few years ago at my job. What I did was create a custom Bash function to switch Git accounts and add it to my .bashrc file. I love this. I’ll give it a try.
~/.ssh/config
~/.git/configreply