Git Bash: Could not open a connection to your authentication agent [duplicate]

Answer 1

I checked all the solutions on this post and the post that @kenorb referenced above, and I did not find any solution that worked for me.

I am using Git 1.9.5 Preview on Windows 7 with the following configuration: - Run Git from the Windows Command Prompt - Checkout Windows-style, commit Unix-style line endings

I used the 'Git Bash' console for everything... And all was well until I tried to install the SSH keys. GitHub's documentation says to do the following (don't run these commands until you finish reading the post):

Ensure ssh-agent is enabled:

If you are using Git Bash, turn on ssh-agent:

# start the ssh-agent in the background
ssh-agent -s
# Agent pid 59566

If you are using another terminal prompt, such as msysgit, turn on ssh-agent:

# start the ssh-agent in the background
eval $(ssh-agent -s)
# Agent pid 59566

Now of course I missed the fact that you were supposed to do one or the other. So, I ran these commands multiple times because the later ssh-add command was failing, so I returned to this step, and continued to retry over and over.

This results in 1 Windows 'ssh-agent' process being created every single time you run these commands (notice the new PID every time you enter those commands?)

So, Ctrl+Alt+Del and hit End Process to stop each 'ssh-agent.exe' process.

Now that all the messed up stuff from the failed attempts is cleaned up, I will tell you how to get it working...

In 'Git Bash':

Start the 'ssh-agent.exe' process

eval $(ssh-agent -s)

And install the SSH keys

ssh-add "C:\Users\MyName\.ssh\id_rsa"

* Adjust the path above with your username, and make sure that the location of the* /.ssh directory is in the correct place. I think you choose this location during the Git installation? Maybe not...

The part I was doing wrong before I figured this out was I was not using quotes around the 'ssh-add' location. The above is how it needs to be entered on Windows.

Answer 2

Situation: MVS2017 App - Using 'Git Bash' on Windows 10 - Trying to connect to a BitBucket repository.

To be clear, when you install Git for Windows (https://git-scm.com/download/win), it comes with an utility called Git Bash.

So, I am in 'Git Bash', as follows:

Mike@DUBLIN MINGW64 ~/source/repos/DoubleIrish (master)
$ git remote add origin git@bitbucket.org:Guiness/DoubleIrish.git
$ git remote -v
origin  git@bitbucket.org:Guiness/DoubleIrish.git (fetch)
origin  git@bitbucket.org:Guiness/DoubleIrish.git (push)
Mike@DUBLIN MINGW64 ~/source/repos/DoubleIrish (master)
$ git push -u origin master
[...]
git@bitbucket.org: Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Is the private key set up?

$ ssh -V
OpenSSH_7.7p1, OpenSSL 1.0.2p  14 Aug 2018
$ ls -a ~/.ssh
./  ../  known_hosts

I can see that, at this point, my private key file (id_rsa) is missing. So I add it: (note: generating a pair of private-public keys is out of scope of my reply, but I can say that in Linux, you can use ssh-keygen for that.)

$ ls -a ~/.ssh
./  ../  id_rsa  known_hosts

OK, let's proceed:

$ ssh-agent
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/ssh-KhQwFLAgWGYC/agent.18320; export SSH_AUTH_SOCK;
SSH_AGENT_PID=17996; export SSH_AGENT_PID;
echo Agent pid 17996;

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

To solve this, I run:

$ ssh-agent bash

And then, again:

$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Identity added: /c/Users/Mike.CORP/.ssh/id_rsa (/c/Users/Mike.CORP/.ssh/id_rsa)

It worked for me. Hope this helps

Answer 3

On Windows, you can use Run with one of the below commands.

For 32-Bit:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\cmd\start-ssh-agent.cmd"

For-64 Bit:

"C:\Program Files\Git\cmd\start-ssh-agent.cmd"

Answer 4

Try using cygwin instead of bash. that worked for me

Answer 5

It seems you need to run ssh-agent before using it:

eval `ssh-agent -s`

That question was answered in this topic: Could not open a connection to your authentication agent

Answer 6

I was struggling with the problem as well.

After I typed $ eval 'ssh-agent -s' followed by $ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

I got the same complain: "Could not open a connection to your authentication agent". Then I realize there are two different kind of quotation on my computer's keyboard. So I tried the one at the same position as "~": $ eval ssh-agent -s $ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

And bang it worked.