ssh-agent and reboots

lostinvietnam · 10-10-2006, 09:08 PM

Hi.
I have added my private key to memory with:

$ssh-add /bin/bash
Enter passphrase for /user1/.ssh/id_rsa:

$ssh-add -l
1024 2a:1f:3d:84:3a:20:94:74:c9:ac etc, etc /user1/.ssh/id_rsa

Until now I use Pageant in putty for the same purpose and yes I need to reload my private key into Pageant every time I reboot my Windows machine. So my question is do I also need to add this to my boot scripts in Linux to have my private ley loaded each time or I only need to do this once and it's persistant?

Thanks!

Lotharster · 10-11-2006, 03:42 AM

The key is lost on reboot. When you want to automatically load it on startup, you should use a key without a passphrase, otherwise you would have to enter the passphrase everytime on bootup.

unSpawn · 10-11-2006, 06:16 AM

do I also need to add this to my boot scripts in Linux to have my private ley loaded each time or I only need to do this once and it's persistant?
Add ssh-agent/ssh-add to your X or console session startup scripts, not the boot scripts.

When you want to automatically load it on startup, you should use a key without a passphrase
I'd like to emphasise passphraseless keys are for specific automated tasks like rsync backups and like that.
Do NOT use that for accessing remote systems from your personal account.