automatically start ssh-agent #ssh #util

.profile

# SSH key must already be created
SSH_ENV=$HOME/.ssh/environment

function start_agent {
    echo "Initializing new SSH agent..."
    /usr/bin/ssh-agent | sed 's/^echo/#echo/' >| "${SSH_ENV}"
    echo succeeded
    chmod 600 "${SSH_ENV}"
    . "${SSH_ENV}" > /dev/null
    # load all private ssh keys
    find ~/.ssh/ -type f -not -path "**/.archive/*" -exec grep -l "PRIVATE" {} \; | xargs ssh-add &> /dev/null
}

if [ -f "${SSH_ENV}" ]; then
     . "${SSH_ENV}" > /dev/null
     ps -ef | grep ${SSH_AGENT_PID} | grep ssh-agent$ > /dev/null || { start_agent; }
else
    start_agent;
fi

debug.sh

# check for added keys
ssh-add -l

# add default key ~/.ssh/id_rsa
ssh-add

# add specific key
ssh-add ~/.ssh/github

instructions.md

Add the code from .profile to your own ~/.profile.

This is slightly different from the StackOverflow answer: Start ssh-agent on login. If noclobber has been set in your environment, then writing to .ssh/environment will fail. In this version, the file is overwritten with >|. See why 'cannot overwrite existing file'?.