Hi Darren, if I got this right, then using ssh-agent some memory effect appears to sneak in, besides the remembered passphrases. IMHO thats the bad part. The ssh client should stay in control which keys are tried in which sequence. Is there a risk that a key pair with a "poor" cipher is tried first, even though a key pair with a better cipher is mentioned first in the config file? Thanx for your detailed response Harri _______________________________________________ openssh-unix-dev mailing list openssh-unix-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.mindrot.org/mailman/listinfo/openssh-unix-dev