Mac/Linux
Agent Forwarding in Mac and Linux Systems
Start the SSH-Agent
First, start your ssh-agent
with the command below.
$ eval $(ssh-agent)
You should see an output similar to this:
Agent pid 48792
Add Key(s)
Next, add your ssh private keys to the running agent (using the ssh-add
command on line 1). This step may be repeated for every key pair you use to connect to different git servers. For most, this file is called id_rsa
and will live in ~/.ssh/id_rsa
. If you set a password for your ssh keys, the agent will prompt you to enter them.
$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Enter passphrase for ~/.ssh/id_rsa:
Identity added: ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Confirm the ssh keys have been loaded into the agent with ssh-add -L
:
$ ssh-add -L
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1y...CQ0jPj2VG3Mjx2NR user@computer
Connect to Oscar
Now ssh into Oscar with the -A
option as shown on the first line below (replace username
with your Oscar username). -A
will forward your ssh-agent to Oscar, enabling you to use the ssh keys on your laptop while logged into Oscar.
$ ssh -A [email protected]
If you have ssh keys setup on your local computer to connect to GitHub, you can confirm your ssh-agent was properly forwarded by checking GitHub . If the ssh command fails, your agent has not been properly forwarded.
$ ssh [email protected]
Hi JaneDoe! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access.
Connection to github.com closed.
Always connecting with Agent Forwarding
To make these changes permanent, you can add the ForwardAgent yes
option to your ssh configuration file. To learn more about configuring your ssh connections, visit
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