Automatically starting ssh-agent when powershell or git-bash are started
Including a snippet for .bashrc on linux-like environment
Windows environment
It’s best to configure OpenSSH Authentication Agent service to automatically start. Alternatively, you can start it manually every time when opening powershell for the first time:
Start-Service ssh-agent
To have SSH agent to automatically start with Windows, you can run (from elevated powershell prompt):
Set-Service ssh-agent -StartupType Automatic
After that, you need to add your ssh key once:
ssh-add C:\Users\your-name\ssh\id_rsa
Now everytime the ssh-agent is started, the key will be there. You can check which keys are registered with the ssh-agent:
ssh-add -l
Linux-like environement
On linux or in git-for-windows environment, I use the following snippet in my .bashrc to achieve the same effect:
# This is used to start ssh-agent once when git-bash is started.
# Saves typing the ssh key password every time you interact with
# a remote repo.
env=~/.ssh/agent.env
agent_load_env () { test -f "$env" && . "$env" >| /dev/null ; }
agent_start () {
(umask 077; ssh-agent >| "$env")
. "$env" >| /dev/null ; }
agent_load_env
# agent_run_state: 0=agent running w/ key; 1=agent w/o key; 2= agent not running
agent_run_state=$(ssh-add -l >| /dev/null 2>&1; echo $?)
if [ ! "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK" ] || [ $agent_run_state = 2 ]; then
agent_start
ssh-add
elif [ "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK" ] && [ $agent_run_state = 1 ]; then
ssh-add
fi
unset env
