Take the 2-minute tour ×

I ran some X applications using ssh -Y my_address and now it asks me to unlock my RSA key every time I use it. I used to only have to unlock it once a day. What's going on?

I'm using Ubuntu 9.04.

share|improve this question
Is ssh-agent running in the background? –  Grumbel Apr 21 '10 at 15:50
@Grumbel: Yep, it is. –  Benjamin Oakes Apr 21 '10 at 16:25
add comment

3 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Found it elsewhere. I had to do this:

ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
share|improve this answer
Ugh... it happens again when I restart my computer. Running this command fixes it, but it doesn't seem like I should have to do this every day. –  Benjamin Oakes Apr 22 '10 at 15:58
create a startup script that runs this command at boot. or adjust your crontab to run it daily. –  Ben Plont Aug 19 '13 at 22:30
add comment

I am sure you have fixed this by now, but you might be interested to see a response to a question I recently asked on AskUbuntu.


share|improve this answer
add comment

For anyone who get's a Could not open a connection to your authentication agent when executing ssh-add will need to start ssh-agent first.

ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
share|improve this answer
add comment

Your Answer


