Access GitHub using SSH

If you want to use SSH to connect to GitHub, you can follow the steps below:

• Generate a new SSH key:

ssh-keygen

You will see there is a new file named id_rsa and id_rsa.pub in the ~/.ssh directory.

• Add the SSH key to the ssh-agent:

  1. Get on to github.com and click on your profile picture on the top right corner. Then click on Settings

  2. Click on SSH and GPG keys on the left sidebar

  3. Click on New SSH key button

  4. Enter a title for the SSH key

  5. Copy the contents of the id_rsa.pub file and paste it into the Key field

  6. Click on Add SSH key button

• Set up the SSH config file:

  1. Create a new file named config in the ~/.ssh directory

  2. Add the following content to the config file:

  ~/.ssh/config

  Host github.com
    HostName github.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
  3. Save the file

• Ready to go now:

  1. Clone the repository using SSH:

  git clone git@github.com:<github-account>/<repo-name>.git
  2. Push the changes to the remote repository:

  git push git@github.com:<github-account>/<repo-name>.git
  3. Pull the changes from the remote repository:

  git pull git@github.com:<github-account>/<repo-name>.git