SSH Agent

I have several servers that I use to host my projects. Sometimes I need to move data between the servers, but realizing a server is missing an SSH key to another is annoying. This is where SSH agent comes into play. It holds a keychain for SSH keys you choose and forwards them as you ssh between the servers. No more using ssh-copy-id or manually editing ~/.ssh/authorized_keys.

I'm also fan of fish shell. It's quite handy, but poses a difficulty when using snippets from the internet.

Usage

Running ssh-agent sets a few environment variables. ssh-add adds default SSH key to keychain . eval is for running the commands manually in fish shell that would work natively in bash.

eval (ssh-agent -c)
ssh-add

running these gives:

abdus@home ~> eval (ssh-agent -c)
Agent pid 7282
abdus@home ~> ssh-add
Identity added: /home/abdus/.ssh/id_rsa (/home/abdus/.ssh/id_rsa)

After setting up the agent, we can connect to a server from a different server without setting up SSH keys first.

abdus@home ~> eval (ssh-agent -c)
abdus@home ~> ssh-add
abdus@home ~> ssh abdus@server1
abdus@server1 ~> ssh abdus@server2
abdus@server2 ~> # it works!