On 16/01/2011, at 2:12 PM, bluethundr wrote:
> Hello and thanks for your reply!
>
> Well I took your advice and removed that keychain scriptlet from
> .bashrc and put it into .bash_profile. Not sure what the functional
> difference between the two would be. Perhaps you would care to
> elaborate? I know that rc stands for "resource configuration" but
> other than that I don't know why this statement would be more
> appropriate in the .bash_profile. However you do seem well versed in
> this and I hope you don't mind answering this question.
>
.bash_profile is executed for login shells (followed by .bashrc).
.bashrc is executed for non-login shells as well.
.bash_profile should therefore be used for session setup tasks.
> So this is what I put into my .bash_profile
>
> $(keychain --eval --agents ssh id_rsa)
>
> and here is an ssh session from after when I did this:
>
> [bluethundr@LCENT01:~]#bash
> [bluethundr@LCENT01:~]#ssh-agent
> SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/ssh-cBwwRR5466/agent.5466; export SSH_AUTH_SOCK;
> SSH_AGENT_PID=5467; export SSH_AGENT_PID;
Here you are not actually starting the ssh-agent in the background (which explains why it is outputting environment variables). You should give it a second parameter to tell it which program to launch.
ssh-agent bash
However, this will cause the parent shell to become redundant, so you want to instead replace it with the shell that ssh-agent starts (that shell has the environment variables set appropriately).
exec ssh-agent bash
Now when you use ssh-add, it should be able to see the agent.
> echo Agent pid 5467;
> [bluethundr@LCENT01:~]#ssh-add
> Could not open a connection to your authentication agent.
> [bluethundr@LCENT01:~]#exec ssh-agent bash
> [bluethundr@LCENT01:~]#ssh-add
> Enter passphrase for /home/bluethundr/.ssh/id_rsa:
> Identity added: /home/bluethundr/.ssh/id_rsa (/home/bluethundr/.ssh/id_rsa)
>
> So this behavior did not change. I still have to enter my passphrase
> again after I put this into my .bash_profile
>
Of course. The passphrase is important because it encrypts the private key. This, presumably, is why you are using the 'keychain' program, which is typically used to have a key unlocked manually by a system administrator (eg. after boot), so that cron jobs, etc, can access it.
>
> [bluethundr@LCENT01:~]#ssh virt1
> Last login: Sat Jan 15 11:51:08 2011 from 192.168.1.42
> #########################################################
> # SUMMITNJHOME.COM #
> # TITLE: LB1 BOX #
> # HOST: VIRTCENT01 #
> # LOCATION: SUMMIT BASEMENT #
> #########################################################
>
> * keychain 2.7.0 ~ http://www.funtoo.org
> * Found existing ssh-agent: 27556
> * Adding 1 ssh key(s): /home/bluethundr/.ssh/id_rsa
> Enter passphrase for /home/bluethundr/.ssh/id_rsa:
> Bad passphrase, try again for /home/bluethundr/.ssh/id_rsa:
> * ssh-add: Identities added: /home/bluethundr/.ssh/id_rsa
>
> This is new.. now I get prompted for the passphrase AGAIN once I reach
> the server I am ssh'ing in to.
This is why ssh-add (and presumably also 'keychain'), should NOT be included in your ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc (or similar).
SSH Agent Forwarding is the correct way to approach this problem: it generally increases system security (keys become easier to manage) and reduces user support requirements.
_______________________________________________
CentOS mailing list
CentOS@xxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
