Proper way to use 'ssh-agent' and 'ssh-add' ?

[William Park]

On Sat, Feb 04, 2006 at 07:41:57PM -0500, Robert Brockway wrote:
> On Sat, 4 Feb 2006, William Park wrote:
> 
> >What is proper way to use 'ssh-agent' and 'ssh-add'?
> >
> >Manpage says, 'ssh-agent' is to be run within login console, like
> >   eval `ssh-agent -s`
> >and killed with
> >   eval `ssh-agent -s -k`
> >If I put that in ~/.profile, then I have to type my passphrase on every
> >login console or xterm.  Very painful.
> >
> >I would like to run 'ssh-add' once, either at console or Xterm; and,
> >after that, all my ssh activities should lookup 'ssh-agent', whether I'm
> >at virtual consoles or Xterms.
> 
> I have the following at the end of my ~/.xsession, to use ssh-agent with 
> X:
> 
> # Allow ssh-agent to kick off the window manager ($MANAGER)
> ssh-agent bash -c "ssh-add < /dev/null && $MANAGER"
> 
> $MANAGER is the full path to your window manager set earlier in the 
> script.

I'm doing a variation of above, right now.  
    eval `ssh-agent -s`
    ssh-add
    startx
It takes care of all ssh activities from that point on, as long as I do
stay on X.

But, I also use multiple virtual consoles.  That's the problem.

Does every user need his/her own 'ssh-agent'?  Or, is single 'ssh-agent'
(say, from /etc/rc.d/...) enough for whole machine?

-- 
William Park <opengeometry-FFYn/CNdgSA at public.gmane.org>, Toronto, Canada
ThinFlash: Linux thin-client on USB key (flash) drive
	   http://home.eol.ca/~parkw/thinflash.html
BashDiff: Super Bash shell
	  http://freshmeat.net/projects/bashdiff/
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