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Organizing multiple Git identities

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Re: Organizing multiple Git identities

#51

Post by Arnavion »

xp84 wrote: post #22
l72 wrote: post #3

How do people handle multiple git identities with github+ssh? Since you always log in as the `git` user, you can't reuse keys. I end up with an ~/.ssh/config like: Host github-client1 Hostname github.com User git IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa-client1 Host github-client2 Hostname github.com User git IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa-client2 Then clone using `git clone git@github-client1:username/repo.git` Is there a better way?

This is pretty cool. I'm curious, what are people's opinions about the pro/cons of maintaining multiple GitHub identities like this? Personally, I have never found it necessary to do this, but about 1/3 to ½ of the people I work with usually have "-companyname" in their usernames, so it appears semi-popular. What I do is just add my work email as a secondary to my GitHub account and configure the work laptop to use t…

The company can mandate SSO, security settings, profile settings like avatar or description, etc that you don't want to apply to your personal account.

Also, once you leave that company, you don't have to worry about unsubscribing from that company's repos, issue threads, etc, or worry about people still @-mentioning you because you participated in those repos before.

Re: Organizing multiple Git identities

#52

Post by layer8 »

diggan wrote: post #13
l72 wrote: post #3

How do people handle multiple git identities with github+ssh? Since you always log in as the `git` user, you can't reuse keys. I end up with an ~/.ssh/config like: Host github-client1 Hostname github.com User git IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa-client1 Host github-client2 Hostname github.com User git IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa-client2 Then clone using `git clone git@github-client1:username/repo.git` Is there a better way?

Different gitconfigs per path on disk, git automatically uses the right identity depending on where you are on disk. Allows you to separate all projects into different users and every repository within those directories will use the specified user. Main/default config (~/.gitconfig): [user] email = git@victor.earth name = Victor Bjelkholm [includeIf "gitdir:/home/user/projects/user-a/"] path = /home/user/.gitconfig-u…

Note that includeIf support can still be spotty in third-party tools/IDEs. Be sure to check that it works everywhere you need it to.

Re: Organizing multiple Git identities

#53

Post by simonkagedal »

rkangel wrote: post #2

I have the email address problem, but that's the only paramter that needs to vary. I use the simplest way of handling this, which is this in my .config/git/config: [user] name = "My Name" useConfigOnly = true Then, the first time you commit in each repo, you'll get an "Author Identity Unknown" message. Then just run `git config --local user.email hello@example.com` to set the config for that repo.

This is what I’ve been doing for years, with some aliases to set work or personal. But honestly, I’ve started to find it annoying enough (for those first commits) to start wanting something else; yet still not annoying enough for me to research a different solution. Seeing this post, I’ll probably switch to the ”includeIf” way!

Re: Organizing multiple Git identities

#54

Post by danielvaughn »

l72 wrote: post #3

How do people handle multiple git identities with github+ssh? Since you always log in as the `git` user, you can't reuse keys. I end up with an ~/.ssh/config like: Host github-client1 Hostname github.com User git IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa-client1 Host github-client2 Hostname github.com User git IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa-client2 Then clone using `git clone git@github-client1:username/repo.git` Is there a better way?

I was doing this, and sent a question to Github support for a particular thing I was trying to do with my multiple accounts. I got a fairly strong warning about how I was in violation of their service agreement and I could get my subscription terminated if I was found to be using multiple accounts.

It was very odd. Either (a) the person responding to me was uninformed, or (b) that's actually Github's policy and it's not nearly as prominently displayed as it should be.

Re: Organizing multiple Git identities

#55

Post by mathstuf »

danielvaughn wrote: post #54
l72 wrote: post #3

How do people handle multiple git identities with github+ssh? Since you always log in as the `git` user, you can't reuse keys. I end up with an ~/.ssh/config like: Host github-client1 Hostname github.com User git IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa-client1 Host github-client2 Hostname github.com User git IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa-client2 Then clone using `git clone git@github-client1:username/repo.git` Is there a better way?

I was doing this, and sent a question to Github support for a particular thing I was trying to do with my multiple accounts. I got a fairly strong warning about how I was in violation of their service agreement and I could get my subscription terminated if I was found to be using multiple accounts. It was very odd. Either (a) the person responding to me was uninformed, or (b) that's actually Github's policy and it's…

It's not allowed:

> One person or legal entity may maintain no more than one free Account (if you choose to control a machine account as well, that's fine, but it can only be used for running a machine).

https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t...

I suppose you could pay for additional accounts though.

Anyways, I would use SSH host aliases for this myself as well. Might want to consider `IdentitiesOnly yes` as well.

Re: Organizing multiple Git identities

#56

Post by pc86 »

thekombustor wrote: post #25
xp84 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty cool. I'm curious, what are people's opinions about the pro/cons of maintaining multiple GitHub identities like this? Personally, I have never found it necessary to do this, but about 1/3 to ½ of the people I work with usually have "-companyname" in their usernames, so it appears semi-popular. What I do is just add my work email as a secondary to my GitHub account and configure the work laptop to use t…

Keeping work/private life separate is reason enough to me (also, we don't use Github - we use bitbucket - the decision was made for me!) Ultimately, I think having work-specific accounts is preferable, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of IT departments also prefer this (however, this is also coming from the medical space, where controls are rather tight and security is extremely important and heavily audited)

I've worked for a handful of medical companies, including ones that handle de-anonymized PHI/patient data and/or develop medical devices, both very heavily audited and regulated even in comparison to other medical companies. Using a personal GitHub account attached to an organization on either GitHub proper or GitHub Enterprise was never an issue. Sure we had some folks create a separate account because they wanted to, but there no directive from the IT/security folks even suggesting that, and I'd consider them showing any preference toward not just attaching your personal account a big organization red flag - it means they're just defaulting to "don't do that" rather than actually taking five minutes to understand the constraints and ramifications.

Re: Organizing multiple Git identities

#57

Post by jomar »

danielvaughn wrote: post #54
l72 wrote: post #3

How do people handle multiple git identities with github+ssh? Since you always log in as the `git` user, you can't reuse keys. I end up with an ~/.ssh/config like: Host github-client1 Hostname github.com User git IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa-client1 Host github-client2 Hostname github.com User git IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa-client2 Then clone using `git clone git@github-client1:username/repo.git` Is there a better way?

I was doing this, and sent a question to Github support for a particular thing I was trying to do with my multiple accounts. I got a fairly strong warning about how I was in violation of their service agreement and I could get my subscription terminated if I was found to be using multiple accounts. It was very odd. Either (a) the person responding to me was uninformed, or (b) that's actually Github's policy and it's…

It's always been very clear in their Terms of Service (which obviously everyone reads carefully...):

The third bullet point at https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t... --

> One person or legal entity may maintain no more than one free Account (if you choose to control a machine account as well, that's fine, but it can only be used for running a machine).

This is the primary reason why I have only ever used my own personal account for work stored at GitHub. If a company is expecting its employees to use a separate work GH account, one assumes that company is planning to pay for all those accounts for its employees.

Re: Organizing multiple Git identities

#58

Post by jomar »

jomar wrote: post #57
danielvaughn wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was doing this, and sent a question to Github support for a particular thing I was trying to do with my multiple accounts. I got a fairly strong warning about how I was in violation of their service agreement and I could get my subscription terminated if I was found to be using multiple accounts. It was very odd. Either (a) the person responding to me was uninformed, or (b) that's actually Github's policy and it's…

It's always been very clear in their Terms of Service (which obviously everyone reads carefully...): The third bullet point at https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t... -- > One person or legal entity may maintain no more than one free Account (if you choose to control a machine account as well, that's fine, but it can only be used for running a machine). This is the primary reason why I have on…

Having said that, given that many people do use separate GitHub accounts for their separate private and work personas, and many organisations seemingly expect their employees to do so, perhaps GitHub could consider revising this Terms of Service restriction to better reflect reality.

There have also been times when I would like to have access to a second GitHub account for testing purposes. (In particular, for testing GH behaviour when the accounts corresponding to PR commits, PR creator, and PR merger all differ -- see for example https://github.com/isaacs/github/issues/1368>.)

Re: Organizing multiple Git identities

#59

Post by organsnyder »

vindex10 wrote: post #28

I find one disadvantage of SSH key auth, in case of GitHub in particular, that SSH key grants access to all the repos independently on the organization, etc, which becomes a bigger problem when sharing the machine with other people. One can set a password on the ssh key, but I still felt a bit paranoid about it. I found a way out with fine-grained personal access tokens which allow you to choose the repositories this…

For a shared machine, I'd prefer to have an encrypted home directory (assuming you have separate users).
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