![]() | Introduction to SSHChain |
The SSH package provided with Mac OS X includes a utility called
ssh-agent
. The purpose of ssh-agent
is to
hold your SSH identities in memory, so that you don't have to repeatedly
enter your passphrase for every SSH-related command. You run
ssh-agent
once, enter your passphrase(s) once, and it
takes care of the rest.
Unfortunately, the usual provisions for starting ssh-agent
are designed for X11-based windowing systems, and don't integrate too
well with Mac OS X. (In particular, they assume that you have a root
session which can run user-specified programs, and from which all other
processes will inherit their environment. There is also the problem of
how to get your passphrases to ssh-agent
.)
With the SSHChain utility, you can add your SSH identities and
passphrases to the Apple Keychain, and have ssh-agent
load
automatically each time you log in. The agent will then be available
to whatever processes you launch. SSHChain will also terminate the
agent when you log out, so that unused agents are not left running.
Specifically, SSHChain does the following:
ssh-agent
.
ssh-add
to add each identity to the agent.
SSH_AUTH_SOCK
environment
variable in a shell file, which can be sourced by your shell
startup files. Alternatively, you can choose a fixed socket path
and make it available to applications started from the Finder also.
ssh-agent
.
SSHChain Help | Setting up SSHChain |