How to cache your SSH key passphrase with ssh-agent

Note#20

notes
Published

2022-11-24

Modified

2026-04-25

For the current shell

eval "$(ssh-agent)"
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

Enter your passphrase when prompted. It is cached for the rest of the shell session.

Across shells with keychain

keychain starts or reuses a long-running ssh-agent and loads your keys.

Add this to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc:

if command -v keychain &>/dev/null; then
    eval "$(keychain --eval --quiet id_ed25519)"
fi

List loaded keys

ssh-add -l