How to reload the ssh config file in Mac OS X via terminal

When I update my ssh config file so I can switch my current github account, the changes wont work properly unless I restart iTerm. I'm working on a script to automate the github account switch and I'd like to have the script reload the config settings in the updated config file. How can I achieve this?

Daniel Jacobson

Posted 2016-11-22T22:20:59.240

Reputation: 245

3How, do you switch accounts? Do you use ssh-agent? The ssh_config is read for every single invocation of ssh. – Jakuje – 2016-11-23T08:44:14.440

Can you give us more detail about the config file? Also, could you define different hosts for the different github accounts, and avoid the reloading problem? – JasKerr – 2016-11-24T02:45:18.360

Answers

In my case, I finally discovered that the issue wasn't the config file (ssh -vvv -F /dev/null -i /some/path/some_other_key and even moving the old keys in ~/.ssh/ elsewhere, nonetheless still managed to magick the old key out of nowhere), but rather the ssh agent. I had to clear it with ssh-add -D.

man ssh_config clarifies that -i on ssh should take precedence over the ~/.ssh/config file; so if you're doing this and it's still not working, some undocumented higher priority power is butting in.

jdowdell

Posted 2016-11-22T22:20:59.240

Reputation: 131

ssh-add -D did the trick – Paul – 2019-11-28T04:41:02.350

You may want to look at the Atlassian documentation on using multiple identities. A case like the one I think you're describing - switching accounts - may be best handled with an SSH config file that accommodates multiple accounts simultaneously instead of scripting.

They provide the following example for the config file at ~/.ssh/config:

# Default GitHub user
Host github.com
 HostName github.com
 PreferredAuthentications publickey
 IdentityFile ~/.ssh/personalid

# Work user account
Host bitbucket.org
 HostName bitbucket.org
 PreferredAuthentications publickey
 IdentityFile ~/.ssh/workid

user2623888

Posted 2016-11-22T22:20:59.240

Reputation: 11

1Note you could also use different Host nicknames for the same HostName, with different IdentityFiles for each: Host github-charlie, Host github-sam – jpaugh – 2018-02-05T14:56:20.793

While I was looking for a way to 'refresh' the file I realised what I was actually looking for was a way to auto complete the command,

Refreshing was not necessary as @Jakuje above mentions

For those interested the auto complete script is:

complete -o default -o nospace -W "$(grep "^Host" $HOME/.ssh/config | cut -d" " -f2)" scp sftp ssh

Which I found here.

Add the above script to .bash_profile and then run source .bash_profile

Tomos Williams

Posted 2016-11-22T22:20:59.240

Reputation: 101