Setting Up SSH Authentication with GitHub for Secure Access with 2FA GitHub Accounts

Creating SSH Keys

Type this in to create GitHub Keys for your computer

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "your_email@example.com"

Notes:

• I typically save this in ~/.ssh/github
• You don’t have to put a password if you aren’t worried about security

Adding the New Key to GitHub and Local SSH-Agent

Type the following on the local machine to add your key to the agent.

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

Copy the contents of ~/.ssh/github.pub to the new key field in GitHub. If you have xclip installed type this cat ~/.ssh/github.pub | xclip -sel clip to copy the contents.

Test GitHub SSH Access

Type the following to verify you have completed the setup properly

ssh -T git@github.com

SSH GitHub Clone Syntax and Updating Repositories

Here is how to clone new repositories instead of using https://

git clone git@github.com:USERNAME/Repo.git

Update existing repositories to use SSH instead of https

git remote set-url origin git@github.com:USERNAME/Repo.git

Conclusion

This is the best way to clone and push updates to repositories if you have 2-Factor enabled on your GitHub account.