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danieldogeanu/MakePowerShellRememberSSHPassphrase.md

Last active August 9, 2025 16:42
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How to make Powershell remember the SSH key passphrase.
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MakePowerShellRememberSSHPassphrase.md

You should not use the Open SSH client that comes with Git for Windows. Instead, Windows 10 has its own implementation of Open SSH that is integrated with the system. To achieve this:

  1. Start the ssh-agent from Windows Services:
  • Type Services in the Start Menu or Win+R and then type services.msc to launch the Services window;
  • Find the OpenSSH Authentication Agent in the list and double click on it;
  • In the OpenSSH Authentication Agent Properties window that appears, choose Automatic from the Startup type: dropdown and click Start from Service status:. Make sure it now says Service status: Running.
  1. Configure Git to use the Windows 10 implementation of OpenSSH by issuing the following command in Powershell:
git config --global core.sshCommand C:/Windows/System32/OpenSSH/ssh.exe
  1. Configure SSH to automatically add the keys to the agent on startup by editing the config file found at $HOME\.ssh\config (full path - C:\Users\%YOUR_USERNAME%\.ssh\config), and add the following lines:
Host *
	AddKeysToAgent yes
	IdentitiesOnly yes

You can also add the following lines if you generated an SSH key with custom name or multiple SSH keys:

Host github.com
	HostName github.com
	User your_user_name
	IdentityFile ~/.ssh/your_file_name
  1. Add your SSH key to the ssh-agent by issuing the ssh-add command and entering your passphrase:
ssh-add $HOME/.ssh/your_file_name
  1. Done! Now restart your Powershell and even Windows if necessary.

If this was useful, you can buy me a coffee here. Thank you!

@danieldogeanu
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@MarkusEicher I'm honestly not sure how it works, but from what I could find out, the OpenSSH Authentication Agent on Windows uses something called DPAPI (Data Protection API), to store user keys (not just SSH). It technically doesn't store your passwords/passphrases, but the contents of your private keys, into RAM. I can't tell you more than that, as this topic is way too advanced for me, but here are some links that might help you:

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