So, you have an SSH key pair. The public key has been added on to the server. On the client, ie your laptop/desktop you have your private key. For some reason, your private key has not been loaded into memory.

All you have to do is start the ssh-agent and then load the key into memory via ssh-add.

Step 1: Start the agent

eval $(ssh-agent)

Step 2: load the key into memory

Using Git with SSH is a common practice among software developers. The convenience of not having to remember passwords is a huge productivity boost in software development workflows.

In a previous blog post, I wrote about managing SSH keys.

Having many SSH keys can cause few issues:

• ssh-agent doesn’t work well with too many keys.
• Can’t always map SSH keys to servers in SSH client configuration. Both personal and company projects Git can be hosted on the same server or third-party service such as Github.
• Some Git hosting services do not allow you to use the same SSH key in more than one user profile. You are forced to have a unique SSH keypair per user profile.
• The SSH server might refuse to allow too many authentication attempts.

Git allows you to set the environment variable GIT_SSH_COMMAND. If you set this environment variable, Git uses the specified command for push and pull operations.

What is SSH Key Management?

The blog post is intended towards someone new to SSH key management. Do you have just one SSH key pair? Do you have multiple key pairs? What are some pros and cons of having single or multiple key pairs? The post answers such questions about SSH key usage in practice.

The Premise

So, someone walked up to you or in a video call asked for your SSH public key?