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My Git Profiles and SSH Keys Setup WSL Ubuntu

Step 1 — Generate SSH Keys​

# Personal key
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "xxx@gmail.com" -f ~/.ssh/id_personal

# Work key (RSA required for Azure DevOps)
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "xxx@work.com" -f ~/.ssh/id_work

Step 2 — Configure SSH (~/.ssh/config)​

vim ~/.ssh/config
# Personal (GitHub)
Host github.com
    HostName github.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_personal
    IdentitiesOnly yes

# Work (Azure DevOps)
# PubkeyAcceptedAlgorithms is required because OpenSSH 8.8+ disables ssh-rsa by default
Host ssh.dev.azure.com
    HostName ssh.dev.azure.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_work
    IdentitiesOnly yes
    PubkeyAcceptedAlgorithms +ssh-rsa
    HostkeyAlgorithms +ssh-rsa

Set correct permissions:

chmod 600 ~/.ssh/config

Step 3 — Add Keys to the SSH Agent​

eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_personal
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_work

Step 4 — Add Public Keys to Git Providers​

cat ~/.ssh/id_personal.pub   # add to your personal GitHub account
cat ~/.ssh/id_work.pub       # add to Azure DevOps

Azure DevOps: Go to https://dev.azure.com/{your-org} → User Settings (top-right avatar) → SSH public keys → + New Key → paste id_work.pub.

Step 5 — Global Git Config (~/.gitconfig)​

vim ~/.gitconfig
[user]
    name = Joh Doe
    email = xxx@gmail.com

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

The trailing / in the gitdir path is required for directory matching to work.

Step 6 — Work Git Config (~/.gitconfig-work)​

vim ~/.gitconfig-work
[user]
    name = Tutenkhamen
    email = xxx@work.com

Step 7 — Cloning Azure DevOps Repos​

Azure DevOps SSH URLs follow this format:

git clone git@ssh.dev.azure.com:v3/{org}/{project}/{repo}

For repos already cloned via HTTPS, switch them to SSH:

git remote set-url origin git@ssh.dev.azure.com:v3/{org}/{project}/{repo}

Step 8 — ~/.bashrc Additions​

vim ~/.bashrc

Add this block at the end:

# ── SSH Agent ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
# Start agent only if not already running, then load both keys
if [ -z "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK" ]; then
    eval "$(ssh-agent -s)" > /dev/null
    ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_personal 2>/dev/null
    ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_work 2>/dev/null
fi

# ── Git profile helpers ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
alias whoami-git='git config user.email'          # check active git identity
alias git-personal='git config user.email'        # just a reminder alias

Apply immediately without restarting the terminal:

source ~/.bashrc

Verification​

Check active git identity (run from inside a repo):

git config user.email
  • Inside work_dir/** → xxx@work.com
  • Anywhere else → xxx@gmail.com

Test SSH connections:

ssh -T git@github.com
# Expected: "Hi xxx! You've successfully authenticated..."

ssh -T git@ssh.dev.azure.com
# Expected: "remote: Shell access is not supported." ← this is normal, it means auth worked