Enter SSH passphrase once

Question

Before upgrade

When I was running git clone git@... (using ssh) once per computer restart a window dialog appeared containing a textbox for inserting my SSH passphrase and confirmed with OK. Then the passphrase was no longer required until the next start of my system.

After upgrading to 13.10

After upgrading to Ubuntu 13.10 that window doesn't appear anymore but a message in terminal appears:

Enter passphrase for key '/home/username/.ssh/id_rsa': 

...every time when cloning a git repository this appears.

How can I fix this? I want to enter my passphrase only once.

Answer 1

Update: seems to be a bug from 13.10:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libpam-ssh/+bug/1247169

---

Anyway running the following commands the problem was fixed for me:

How to fix

I fixed this by entering the following commands:

$ ssh-agent bash

This creates a new bash process that allows you to add private keys. When adding a new private key you will be prompted for the passphrase once and only once.

And then:

$ ssh-add /home/username/.ssh/id_rsa
Enter passphrase for /home/username/.ssh/id_rsa: 
Identity added: /home/username/.ssh/id_rsa (/home/username/.ssh/id_rsa)

...where username is your username. You can do the same using $USER variable:

$ ssh-add /home/$USER/.ssh/id_rsa

Alternatively, just use ~ for your home directory.

$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

And the problem was fixed.

Answer 2

This Atlassian document fixed the issue for me on Ubuntu 14.04 Server Edition:

Just add this values into your .bashrc file:

SSH_ENV=$HOME/.ssh/environment

# start the ssh-agent
function start_agent {
    echo "Initializing new SSH agent..."
    # spawn ssh-agent
    /usr/bin/ssh-agent | sed 's/^echo/#echo/' > "${SSH_ENV}"
    echo succeeded
    chmod 600 "${SSH_ENV}"
    . "${SSH_ENV}" > /dev/null
    /usr/bin/ssh-add
}

if [ -f "${SSH_ENV}" ]; then
     . "${SSH_ENV}" > /dev/null
     ps -ef | grep ${SSH_AGENT_PID} | grep ssh-agent$ > /dev/null || {
        start_agent;
    }
else
    start_agent;
fi

And after logging in, it asks for password only once and it caches. You don't need to enter it each time.

Answer 3

A workaround for this bug is to add the following to the bottom of ~/.bashrc

eval `gnome-keyring-daemon --start`

Answer 4

0) Short answer

Add in your .ssh/config one line at the beginning:

AddKeysToAgent yes

and run git/ssh/... If it's not enough, check your ssh version and check that ssh-agent is loaded with these instructions:

1) Check the openssh version

Firstly check that your ssh version, it must be greater of equal to 7.2:

ssh -V

2) Edit the config file

If it's the case just add in your .ssh/config one line at the beginning:

AddKeysToAgent yes

3) Check if ssh-agent is already open

Usually distributions automatically load an ssh-agent. To check it, run

ps aux | grep -v grep | grep ssh-agent

If you don't see any line containing it, you need to load it by running:

eval $(ssh-agent)

Note that this enable the agent only on the current terminal, so to enable it everywhere, you can try to add this line in your ~/.profile file and reboot.

Answer 5

Users of the fish shell can use this script to do the same thing.

# content has to be in .config/fish/config.fish
# if it does not exist, create the file
setenv SSH_ENV $HOME/.ssh/environment

function start_agent                                                                                                                                                                    
    echo "Initializing new SSH agent ..."
    ssh-agent -c | sed 's/^echo/#echo/' > $SSH_ENV
    echo "succeeded"
    chmod 600 $SSH_ENV 
    . $SSH_ENV > /dev/null
    ssh-add
end

function test_identities                                                                                                                                                                
    ssh-add -l | grep "The agent has no identities" > /dev/null
    if [ $status -eq 0 ]
        ssh-add
        if [ $status -eq 2 ]
            start_agent
        end
    end
end

if [ -n "$SSH_AGENT_PID" ] 
    ps -ef | grep $SSH_AGENT_PID | grep ssh-agent > /dev/null
    if [ $status -eq 0 ]
        test_identities
    end  
else
    if [ -f $SSH_ENV ]
        . $SSH_ENV > /dev/null
    end  
    ps -ef | grep $SSH_AGENT_PID | grep -v grep | grep ssh-agent > /dev/null
    if [ $status -eq 0 ]
        test_identities
    else 
        start_agent
    end  
end

Answer 6

I use this:

vim ~/.profile

eval `/usr/bin/gnome-keyring-daemon --start --components=pkcs11,secrets,ssh,gpg`
export SSH_AUTH_SOCK
export GPG_AGENT_INFO

Answer 7

If you use azure .ppk file

Just convert it to pem and add permission 400 with simple steps:

sudo apt-get install putty
puttygen <path_to_key>/keyname.ppk -O private-openssh -o <path>/aws_key.pem
sudo chmod 400 <path>/aws_key.pem
ssh -vi aws_key.pem ubuntu@<ip_address>