"Could not open a connection to your authentication agent" ,ssh-add error even after ssh-agent started

Question

I need to add multiple ssh keys , so i need to execute ssh-add

But I get error of Could not open a connection to your authentication agent

I read multiply posts like Could not open a connection to your authentication agent and https://superuser.com/questions/901568/ssh-agent-could-not-open-connection

I had started the ssh-agent by

eval ($ssh-agent -s)

and the output is like : Agent pid 13524

but still get this error:

 $ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
 Could not open a connection to your authentication agent.

I also set

git config --global url."https://".insteadOf git://

And I echo some variable and get this:

echo $SSH_AGENT_PID
12340 
echo $SSH_AUTH_SOCK 
/tmp/ssh-ZbRZr10908/agent.10908

PS: I am using Windows 7 and the under company's network.

Umair Afzal · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-27 23:10:26Z

9

I tried a lot of solutions online but nothing worked. I made more research and found that the following commands worked.

sudo ssh-agent bash

ssh-add /home/user/.ssh/id_rsa

answered Dec 27, 2017 at 23:10

Umair Afzal

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Comments

Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-20 09:12:55Z

7

You put the start of agent wrong. It should be:

eval $(ssh-agent -s)

But if that will not help, anyway you can troubleshoot the issue by trying to write env variables:

echo $SSH_AGENT_PID
echo $SSH_AUTH_SOCK

and making sure the socket (path from the second echo) exists and have reasonable ACL's. Also checking if the agent itself runs by the PID.

Edit:

I see you are using windows, so there can be problem with the paths. Fortunately ssh-agent supports argument -a with the path to UNIX-domain socket or address to bind. You should try:

 ssh-agent -a ./agent_socket

or

 ssh-agent -a 127.0.0.1:9999

which should work even on windows.

edited Jun 20, 2020 at 9:12

CommunityBot

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answered Oct 20, 2015 at 17:38

Jakuje

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4 Comments

JaskeyLam Over a year ago

No use. eval $(ssh-agent -s) -->"Agent pid 12340" echo $SSH_AGENT_PID -->12340 echo $SSH_AUTH_SOCK -->/tmp/ssh-ZbRZr10908/agent.10908

Jakuje Over a year ago

I see you are using windows. Is it under cygwin or how? If not, it is probable, that the path starting with /tmp/ will not work for you.

JaskeyLam Over a year ago

hmm, I just use gitbash to execute these.

Jakuje Over a year ago

I believe there is problem with the path on windows. You should try to start ssh-agent with argument -a ./agent_socket. It should create the socket in current directory and then ssh-add should be able to connect to this socket ... hopefully. Otherwise you can try to bind some localhost address, which should work for sure: ssh-agent -a 127.0.0.1:9999

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