Can I specify multiple users for myself in .gitconfig?

Question

In my ~/.gitconfig, I list my personal email address under [user], since that\'s what I want to use for Github repos.

But, I\'ve recently s

Answer 1

Since git 2.13, it is possible to solve this using newly introduced Conditional includes.

An example:

Global config ~/.gitconfig

[user]
    name = John Doe
    email = john@doe.tld

[includeIf "gitdir:~/work/"]
    path = ~/work/.gitconfig

Work specific config ~/work/.gitconfig

[user]
    email = john.doe@company.tld

Answer 2

Or you can add following information in your local .git/config file

[user]  
    name = Your Name
    email = your.email@gmail.com

Answer 3

If you do not want to have a default email address (email address links to a github user), you can configure that you want to be asked. How you can do that depends on the version of git you use, see below.

The (intended) drawback is that you have to configure your email address (and your name) once for every repository. So, you cannot forget to do it.

Version < 2.7.0

[user]
    name = Your name
    email = "(none)"

in your global configuration ~/.gitconfig as stated in a comment by Dan Aloni in Orr Sella's blog post. When trying to do the first commit in a repository, git fails with the nice message:

*** Please tell me who you are.

Run

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

to set your account's default identity.
Omit --global to set the identity only in this repository.

fatal: unable to auto-detect email address (got '(none)')

The name is taken from the global config when the email address is set locally (the message is not perfectly accurate).

2.7.0 ≤ Version < 2.8.0

The behaviour in versions < 2.7.0 was not intended and fixed with 2.7.0. You can still use a pre-commit hook as described in Orr Sella's blog post. This solution works also for other versions, but the other solutions not for this version.

Version ≥ 2.8.0

Dan Aloni added an option to achieve that behaviour (see release notes). Use it with:

[user]
    useConfigOnly = true

To make it work you may not give a name or email address in the global config. Then, at the first commit, you get an error message

fatal: user.useConfigOnly set but no name given

So the message is not very instructive, but since you set the option explicitly, you should know what to do. In contrast to the solution of versions < 2.7.0, you always have to set both name and email manually.

Answer 4

One command github accounts switch

This solution takes the form of a single git alias. Once executed, the current project user will be attached to another account

Generate ssh keys

ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "rinquin.arnaud@gmail.com" -f '/Users/arnaudrinquin/.ssh/id_rsa'

[...]

ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "arnaud.rinquin@wopata.com" -f '/Users/arnaudrinquin/.ssh/id_rsa_pro'

Link them to your GitHub / Bitbucket accounts

1. copy default public key pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
2. login to your GitHub acount
3. paste the key in the add SSH key github page
4. copy other public key pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa_pro.pub
5. repeat and adapt steps 2 to 4 for every other account

Step 1. Automatic ssh key switching.

We can configure ssh to send a use a specific encryption key depending on the host. The nice thing is that you can have several aliases for the same hostname.

See this example ~/.ssh/config file:

# Default GitHub
Host github.com
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

# Professional github alias
Host github_pro
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_pro

git remote configuration

You can now use these aliases in the git remotes by changing git@github.com by git@github_pro.

You can either change your existing projects remotes (using something like git remote set-url origin git@github_pro:foo/bar.git) or adapt them directly when cloning them.

git clone git@github.com:ArnaudRinquin/atom-zentabs.git

using alias, it become:

git clone git@github_pro:ArnaudRinquin/atom-zentabs.git

Step 2. Changing git user.email

Git config settings can be global or per project. In our case, we want a per project settings. It is very easy to change it:

git config user.email 'arnaud.rinquin@wopata.com'

While this is easy, it takes way to long for the developers we are. We can write a very simple git alias for that.

We are going to add it to the ~/.gitconfig file.

[user]
    name = Arnaud Rinquin
    email = rinquin.arnaud@gmail.com

...

[alias]
    setpromail = "config user.email 'arnaud.rinquin@wopata.com'"

Then, all we have to do is git setpromail to have our email changed for this project only.

Step 3. One command switch please?!

Wouldn’t it be nice to switch from default account to a specified one with a single parameter-less command? This is definitely possible. This command will have two steps:

• change current project remotes to the chosen aliases
• change current project user.email config

We already have a one command solution for the second step, but the first one is way harder. One command remote host change

Here comes the solution in the form of another git alias command to add to your ~/.gitconfig:

[alias]
  changeremotehost = !sh -c \"git remote -v | grep '$1.*fetch' | sed s/..fetch.// | sed s/$1/$2/ | xargs git remote set-url\"

This allows changing all remotes from one host to another (the alias). See the example:

$ > git remote -v
origin  git@github.com:ArnaudRinquin/arnaudrinquin.github.io.git (fetch)
origin  git@github.com:ArnaudRinquin/arnaudrinquin.github.io.git (push)

$ > git changeremotehost github.com github_pro

$ > git remote -v
origin  git@github_pro:ArnaudRinquin/arnaudrinquin.github.io.git (fetch)
origin  git@github_pro:ArnaudRinquin/arnaudrinquin.github.io.git (push)

Combine them all

We now just have to combine the two commands into one, this is quite easy. See how I also integrate bitbucket host switching.

[alias]
  changeremotehost = !sh -c \"git remote -v | grep '$1.*fetch' | sed s/..fetch.// | sed s/$1/$2/ | xargs git remote set-url\"
  setpromail = "config user.email 'arnaud.rinquin@wopata.com'"
  gopro = !sh -c \"git changeremotehost github.com github_pro && git changeremotehost bitbucket.com bitbucket_pro && git setpromail\"

Source Link -Github

Source Link -Tutorial

Answer 5

After getting some inspiration from Orr Sella's blog post I wrote a pre-commit hook (resides in ~/.git/templates/hooks) which would set specific usernames and e-mail addresses based on the information inside a local repositorie's ./.git/config:

You have to place the path to the template directory into your ~/.gitconfig:

[init]
    templatedir = ~/.git/templates

Then each git init or git clone will pick up that hook and will apply the user data during the next git commit. If you want to apply the hook to already exisiting repos then just run a git init inside the repo in order to reinitialize it.

Here is the hook I came up with (it still needs some polishing - suggestions are welcome). Save it either as

~/.git/templates/hooks/pre_commit

or

~/.git/templates/hooks/post-checkout

and make sure it is executable: chmod +x ./post-checkout || chmod +x ./pre_commit

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# -------- USER CONFIG
# Patterns to match a repo's "remote.origin.url" - beginning portion of the hostname
git_remotes[0]="Github"
git_remotes[1]="Gitlab"

# Adjust names and e-mail addresses
local_id_0[0]="my_name_0"
local_id_0[1]="my_email_0"

local_id_1[0]="my_name_1"
local_id_1[1]="my_email_1"

local_fallback_id[0]="${local_id_0[0]}"
local_fallback_id[1]="${local_id_0[1]}"


# -------- FUNCTIONS
setIdentity()
{
    local current_id local_id

    current_id[0]="$(git config --get --local user.name)"
    current_id[1]="$(git config --get --local user.email)"

    local_id=("$@")

    if [[ "${current_id[0]}" == "${local_id[0]}" &&
          "${current_id[1]}" == "${local_id[1]}" ]]; then
        printf " Local identity is:\n"
        printf "»  User: %s\n»  Mail: %s\n\n" "${current_id[@]}"
    else
        printf "»  User: %s\n»  Mail: %s\n\n" "${local_id[@]}"
        git config --local user.name "${local_id[0]}"
        git config --local user.email "${local_id[1]}"
    fi

    return 0
}

# -------- IMPLEMENTATION
current_remote_url="$(git config --get --local remote.origin.url)"

if [[ "$current_remote_url" ]]; then

    for service in "${git_remotes[@]}"; do

        # Disable case sensitivity for regex matching
        shopt -s nocasematch

        if [[ "$current_remote_url" =~ $service ]]; then
            case "$service" in

                "${git_remotes[0]}" )
                    printf "\n»» An Intermission\n»  %s repository found." "${git_remotes[0]}"
                    setIdentity "${local_id_0[@]}"
                    exit 0
                    ;;

                "${git_remotes[1]}" )
                    printf "\n»» An Intermission\n»  %s repository found." "${git_remotes[1]}"
                    setIdentity "${local_id_1[@]}"
                    exit 0
                    ;;

                * )
                    printf "\n»  pre-commit hook: unknown error\n» Quitting.\n"
                    exit 1
                    ;;

            esac
        fi
    done
else
    printf "\n»» An Intermission\n»  No remote repository set. Using local fallback identity:\n"
    printf "»  User: %s\n»  Mail: %s\n\n" "${local_fallback_id[@]}"

    # Get the user's attention for a second
    sleep 1

    git config --local user.name "${local_fallback_id[0]}"
    git config --local user.email "${local_fallback_id[1]}"
fi

exit 0

---

EDIT:

So I rewrote the hook as a hook and command in Python. Additionally it's possible to call the script as a Git command (git passport), too. Also it's possible to define an arbitrary number of IDs inside a configfile (~/.gitpassport) which are selectable on a prompt. You can find the project at github.com: git-passport - A Git command and hook written in Python to manage multiple Git accounts / user identities.

Answer 6

You can also use git commit --author "Your Name <your@email.com>" at the moment of doing a commit in a repo where you want to commit as a different user.