SSH Best practice

Writing down some of my personal tricks for using OpenSSH. These are already well known but it helps to write them down for myself.

Or rather, when your shell first runs. That's when it will request your key password and add the keys into ssh-agent so you can use them without entering your password over and over.

Create a password protected key.

$ ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f $HOME/.ssh/id_ed25519

Edit $HOME/.bashrc.

if [ -z "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK" ]; then
  eval `ssh-agent -s`
  ssh-add
fi

Next time your shell starts you'll be asked for the password to these keys.
Add more keys to this method.

Modify the shell code in step 2 slightly, replace the ssh-add line with one where you specify which keys to add.
```
$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_2_ed25519
```
This could also be a for loop if you're creative enough.

ssh-add tutorial

List keys added to ssh-agent.
```
$ ssh-add -l
```
Remove a key by filename.
```
$ ssh-add -d ~/.ssh/id_2_ed25519
```

Last update: September 19, 2021

SSH Best practice

Enter ssh key password for ssh-agent at login

ssh-add tutorial