Just a tip for using ssh-agent(1) effectively in BASH(1). If you take advantage of functions, you can reduce the number of ssh-agent's you have running on any one system to one per host. An added advantage is that if you can refresh/set the ssh-agent environment with any open shell on that host. # sagent -- Update current environment w/ssh-agent # * Checks for presense of stamp file, sources it # * Checks for presense of ssh-agent process # * Starts ssh-agent if not already running, saving stamp file sagent(){ if [ -e $HOME/.ssh-agent.$HOSTNAME ] then source $HOME/.ssh-agent.$HOSTNAME if (ps -ef|grep $USER|grep -v grep|grep $SSH_AGENT_PID > \ /dev/null) then return 0 else rm $HOME/.ssh-agent.$HOSTNAME fi fi eval $(ssh-agent -s|tee $HOME/.ssh-agent.$HOSTNAME) } Quick summary of ssh-agent: allows you to type in a password once for any private key you add. bash$ ssh-add <file> A good alias to include with the above function is 'addids'. # addids -- Add known SSH keys alias addids="ssh-add ~/.ssh/id{entity,_dsa,_rsa}" -- Chad Walstrom <chewie at wookimus.net> | a.k.a. ^chewie http://www.wookimus.net/ | s.k.a. gunnarr -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 232 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://shadowknight.real-time.com/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20020404/3d8b9328/attachment.pgp