Auto launching ssh agent when git starts

If you want your passphrase to be 'remembered' for a session (or configurable timeout period) you will need to setup an ssh-agent process to handle this key.

Recent versions of git for windows 2.x come with an ssh agent startup script and the installer also checks if an ssh agent is currently running and asks you to kill this process.

Run the ssh agent:

start-ssh-agent.cmd

This should work both in a cmd and bash shell and can be included in ~/.profile or ~/.bashrc.

The GitHub instructions are still valid but not needed anymore.

Manually

To launch, put in ~/.profile or ~/.bashrc:

# ssh-agent auto-launch (0 = agent running with key; 1 = w/o key; 2 = not run.)
agent_run_state=$(ssh-add -l >| /dev/null 2>&1; echo $?)
if   [ $agent_run_state = 2 ]; then
  eval $(ssh-agent -s)
  ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
elif [ $agent_run_state = 1 ]; then
  ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
fi

To close on shell exit, put in ~/.bash_logout:

ssh-agent -k