Git keeps asking me for my ssh key passphrase

Question

I created keys as instructed in the github tutorial, registered them with github, and tried using ssh-agent explicitly — yet git continues to ask me for my passphrase every

Answer 1

This has been happening to me after restarts since upgrading from OS X El Capitan (10.11) to macOS Sierra (10.12). The ssh-add solution worked temporarily but would not persist across another restart.

The permanent solution was to edit (or create) ~/.ssh/config and enable the UseKeychain option.

Host *
    UseKeychain yes

Related: macOS keeps asking my ssh passphrase since I updated to Sierra

Answer 2

I try different solutions but nothing help. But this steps (My GitBash SSH environment always asks for my passphrase, what can I do?) from Bitbucket.com seams works well :

The idea is:

1. you create ~/.bashrc file

2. add follow script:

   SSH_ENV=$HOME/.ssh/environment
   
   # start the ssh-agent
       function start_agent {
       echo "Initializing new SSH agent..."
       # spawn ssh-agent
       /usr/bin/ssh-agent | sed 's/^echo/#echo/' > "${SSH_ENV}"
       echo succeeded
       chmod 600 "${SSH_ENV}"
       . "${SSH_ENV}" > /dev/null
       /usr/bin/ssh-add
   }
   
   if [ -f "${SSH_ENV}" ]; then
        . "${SSH_ENV}" > /dev/null
        ps -ef | grep ${SSH_AGENT_PID} | grep ssh-agent$ > /dev/null || {
           start_agent;
       }
   else
       start_agent;
   fi
   

3. re-run Bash

Answer 3

on mac, if your ssh key need passphrase everytime and you want to skip it, then you can try below, it works fine for me

1. eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
2. ssh-add -K .ssh/id_rsa
3. add this default ssh configuration works for me

Host *
AddKeysToAgent yes
UseKeychain yes
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Answer 4

Another possible solution that is not mentioned above is to check your remote with the following command:

git remote -v

If the remote does not start with git but starts with https you might want to change it to git by following the example below.

git remote -v // origin is https://github.com/user/myrepo.git
git remote set-url origin git@github.com:user/myrepo.git
git remote -v // check if remote is changed

Answer 5

For Windows or Linux users, a possible solution is described on GitHub Docs, which I report below for your convenience.

You can run ssh-agent automatically when you open bash or Git shell. Copy the following lines and paste them into your ~/.profile or ~/.bashrc file:

env=~/.ssh/agent.env

agent_load_env () { test -f "$env" && . "$env" >| /dev/null ; }

agent_start () {
    (umask 077; ssh-agent >| "$env")
    . "$env" >| /dev/null ; }

agent_load_env

# agent_run_state: 0=agent running w/ key; 1=agent w/o key; 2= agent not running
agent_run_state=$(ssh-add -l >| /dev/null 2>&1; echo $?)

if [ ! "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK" ] || [ $agent_run_state = 2 ]; then
    agent_start
    ssh-add
elif [ "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK" ] && [ $agent_run_state = 1 ]; then
    ssh-add
fi

unset env

If your private key is not stored in one of the default locations (like ~/.ssh/id_rsa), you'll need to tell your SSH authentication agent where to find it. To add your key to ssh-agent, type ssh-add ~/path/to/my_key.

Now, when you first run Git Bash, you are prompted for your passphrase. The ssh-agent process will continue to run until you log out, shut down your computer, or kill the process.

Answer 6

If the above solutions are not working for me, one thing to check is that you actually have the public key too (typically id_rsa.pub). It is unusual not to, but that was the cause for me.

To create your public key from your private key:

ssh-keygen -y -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa > ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub