How to Log In With No Password With the ssh-agent Command
If you want to omit passphrase and password entry when you are using Solaris Secure Shell, you can use the agent daemon. Use the ssh-agent command at the beginning of the session. Then, store your private keys with the agent by using the ssh-add command.If you have different accounts on different hosts, add those keys that you intend to use in the session.
(Optional) Set up SSH Agent to store the keys to avoid having to re-enter passphrase at every login Enter the following commands to start the agent and add the private SSH key. Ssh-agent $BASH ssh-add /.ssh/idrsa Type in your key’s current passphrase when asked. Setup the SSH authentication agent # Start the agent eval `ssh-agent` # Add the identity (private key) to the agent ssh-add /path/to/private-key # Enter key passphrase (one time only, while the agent is running). With the ssh-agent running and the key added to the agent, any ssh session can now be authenticated with that key. Additional ssh-keys, if needed, can be added using ssh-add as described above. Instead of entering the ssh-key password each time, the agent manages the keys and only asks once for the password of the keys.
You can start the agent manually when needed as described in the following procedure. Or, you can set the agent to run automatically at the start of every session as described in How to Set Up the ssh-agent Command to Run Automatically.
Start the agent daemon.
The ssh-agent command starts the agent daemon and displays its process ID.
Add your private key to the agent daemon.
The ssh-add command adds your private key to the agent daemon so that subsequent Secure Shell activity does not prompt you for the passphrase.
Start a Solaris Secure Shell session.
Example—Using ssh-add Options
You can use ssh-add
to add other keys to the daemon as well. For example, you might concurrently have DSA v2, RSA v2, and RSA v1 keys. To list all keys that are stored in the daemon, use the -l option. To delete a single key from the daemon, use the -doption. To delete all keys, use the 1password Ssh Agent Login
-D option.This article is how to automatically add your private key to your ssh-agent keyring each time you open a shell (and remove it automatically when you close it) for automate passwords entries. ssh-add and ssh-agent work on most variants of linux and unix, but also works on cygwin.
What is ssh-agent?
ssh-agent is a program to hold private keys (like those you created with ssh-keygen), used for public key authentication such as RSA, DSA, ECDSA, and Ed255519. It basically prevents you from typing your password repeatedly. Instead you only have to type your password once per session, or shorter depending on how you configure ssh-agent.
ssh-agent stores the private keys, but ssh-add adds or removes keys from the keyring.
Uses Cases for ssh-add
You connect from your workstation to 10 different servers throughout the day, or to 1 server 10 times. Each time you have to type in a long and complicated password. Or maybe you have to jump/chain ssh tunnels. Regardless, you are typing WAY TOO MANY passwords. ssh-agent/ssh-add was designed to help you with this.
Manually Add Private Key to Keyring
You may want to simply add the password manually to your keyring. You can surely do this too, manually, each time you open a new session:
2 4 6 | eval`ssh-agent` fi ssh-add-l>/dev/null||ssh-add |
Test Automatic ssh-agent
You need to restart your shell now to run the .bash_profile script. When you restart you should be able to only type your ssh key password once and it will save it until you close the session, or until 3600 seconds pass – whichever happens first.
Security Tips for ssh-agent
Take for example the following series of unfortunate events for me, if someone could read these files, they can also use them!
1password Ssh Agent Portal
