How do I generate a new ssh-key for my new gitlab account?

Question

I have two Gitlab accounts. On my old account I added an ssh-key that is located in ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub on my computer.

Now I want to add another ssh-key for my new Gitlab account. How do I do this without having the ssh-keys conflict?

Answer 1

I would recommend a second key, for now without passphrase:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "your_email@example.com" -P "" -q -f ~/.ssh/gitlab_rsa

That will create (without any prompt) ~/.ssh/gitlab_rsa (private key) and ~/.ssh/gitlab_rsa.pub (public key)

You need to register that second gitlab_rsa.pub public key to your second GitLab account.

Navigate to the 'SSH Keys' tab in your 'Profile Settings'. Paste your key in the 'Key' section and give it a relevant 'Title'.

Then add a ~/.ssh/config file with:

Host gitlab_rsa
    HostName gitlab.com
    User git
    PreferredAuthentications publickey
    IdentityFile /home/<you>/.ssh/gitlab_rsa

Finally, you can clone any GitLab repo as your second identity with:

git clone gitlab_rsa:<yourSecondAccount>/<yourRepo.git>

That will be replaced automatically with git@gitlab.com:<yourSecondACcount>/<yourRepo.git> and will use your second key.