How do I connect to ssh with a different public key?

Question

I have two public keys, one for some servers and one for others. How do I specify which key to use when connecting to a server?

Answer 1

Assuming you're on a Unix/Linux environment, you can create a config file in your ~/.ssh/ directory.

The config file allows you to establish the parameters to use for each host; so, for example:

Host host1
  HostName <hostname_or_ip>
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/identity_file1

Host Host2
  HostName <hostname_or_ip2>
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/identity_file2

Note that host1 and host2 can also be not hostnames, but rather labels to identify a server.

Now you can log onto the to hosts with:

ssh host1
ssh host2