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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-18T23:17:29+00:00

A rather unusual situation perhaps, but I want to specify a private SSH-key to

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A rather unusual situation perhaps, but I want to specify a private SSH-key to use when executing a shell (git) command from the local computer.

Basically like this:

git clone git@github.com:TheUser/TheProject.git -key "/home/christoffer/ssh_keys/theuser"

Or even better (in Ruby):

with_key("/home/christoffer/ssh_keys/theuser") do
  sh("git clone git@github.com:TheUser/TheProject.git")
end

I have seen examples of connecting to a remote server with Net::SSH that uses a specified private key, but this is a local command. Is it possible?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Something like this should work (suggested by orip):

    ssh-agent bash -c 'ssh-add /somewhere/yourkey; git clone git@github.com:user/project.git'

    if you prefer subshells, you could try the following (though it is more fragile):

    ssh-agent $(ssh-add /somewhere/yourkey; git clone git@github.com:user/project.git)

    Git will invoke SSH which will find its agent by environment variable; this will, in turn, have the key loaded.

    Alternatively, setting HOME may also do the trick, provided you are willing to setup a directory that contains only a .ssh directory as HOME; this may either contain an identity.pub, or a config file setting IdentityFile.

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