Test ssh connection with github shows wrong username

Question

The problem

When I test my ssh connection with github using ssh -T git@github.com, the username it shows is incorrect -

Hi <WRONG USERNAME>! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access.

Accordingly, when I try to clone with SSH I get a fatal error saying I don't have permission to access it.

1. Why is this username not showing correctly?
2. How can I change this username?

What I have tried / checked

• I have checked my global username for git using git config --global user.name.
• I have reset my git credentials in Windows credentials manager.
• I have checked that the correct key has been stored on github.

Other notes

• I am using Windows 10 operating system.
• I have 3 ssh keys.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

See VonC's answer, and note that if you're using an ssh agent, you can point the configured identity file to the public key, so as to select the appropriate public/private keypair to send to GitHub. The ssh code will then pick up the private key from the agent.

(I've found that when you are not using the ssh agent, ssh won't pick up the private key if you point it to the public key file, even if both files are present on the machine, which is sort of annoying. Another way to put this is: if you do use the agent, IdentityFile can be either file, and then you can store only the public key on intermediate machines and jump-hosts, which generally is a good idea. But if you do not use the agent, you obviously must store both public and private keys on the machine, and then IdentityFile must name the private key of the pair. Hence, if you always use the agent, you can use the same ssh config file everywhere, but if you sometimes use the agent, you cannot use the same ssh config file everywhere.)

Answer 2

I followed the steps in this FAQ and updated .ssh/config

In order for that config entry to be used (meaning to use the right private key referenced by IdentityFile), you need to use the Host entry from that %USERPROFILE%\.ssh\config file in your SSH URL:

Host ghuser2
  Hostname github
  User git
  IdentityFile /path/to/user2/private-key

Your URL become

cd c:\path\to\repo
git remote set-url origin ghuser2:<user2>/<repo.git>