SSHChain Preferences

The SSHChain Preferences dialog provides the following options.

Launch SSHChain Helper on login

Checking this button will cause SSHChain to be started each time you login, starting the ssh-agent and adding your SSH identities.

You should use this control, rather than adding the SSHChain application directly via System Preferences. This is because the SSHChain application you see in the Finder is actually a wrapper that triggers the preferences dialog to appear. The application that does the actual work of starting and initializing the ssh-agent is a helper application inside the visible SSHChain application.

SSH Agent Authorization Socket

These radio buttons let you choose how the ssh-agent socket path is chosen. Always use specified path is the default, and makes the most sense if you will set the corresponding path in your environment.plist, thus making it available to applications launched from the Finder.

Alternatively, you can let ssh-agent choose a temporary unique path each time, by choosing Assign unique path each time. For this to be useful, you need to have SSHChain create an environment file, as described below.

Create environment file for SSH variables

As an alternative to using environment.plist to set the SSH_AUTH_SOCK variable, you can have SSHChain write the appropriate SSH_AUTH_SOCK definition into a separate file, in either csh or sh format. You can then source this file from your shell startup file (e.g. .cshrc, .profile, etc.). Of course, the agent will then not be available to applications started from the Finder, but sometimes shell access is all you want.

Restart Agent

This button allows you to quit and restart the ssh-agent, which will cause the SSH identities to be reloaded. This is handy when you made a change or addition in Keychain Access, and want to have it reflected in SSHChain without logging out and back in again.

The confirmation dialog will also give you the option of quitting SSHChain entirely, which will also terminate any running ssh-agent.

SSHChain Help Getting more information