Safely remembering ssh credentials in bash script [duplicate]

Answer 1

Use a control socket to share an authenticated connection among multiple processes:

ssh -fNM -S ~/.ssh/sock otheruser@host  # Will prompt for password, then exit
...
ssh -S ~/.ssh/sock otheruser@host command1
ssh -S ~/.ssh/sock otheruser@host command2
...
ssh -S ~/.ssh/sock -O exit otheruser@host  # Close the master connection

See man ssh_config, under the ControlPath option, for information on how to create a unique path for the control socket.