Enter SSH passphrase once

Update: seems to be a bug from 13.10:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libpam-ssh/+bug/1247169

---

Anyway running the following commands the problem was fixed for me:

How to fix

I fixed this by entering the following commands:

$ ssh-agent bash

This creates a new bash process that allows you to add private keys. When adding a new private key you will be prompted for the passphrase once and only once.

And then:

$ ssh-add /home/username/.ssh/id_rsa
Enter passphrase for /home/username/.ssh/id_rsa: 
Identity added: /home/username/.ssh/id_rsa (/home/username/.ssh/id_rsa)

...where username is your username. You can do the same using $USER variable:

$ ssh-add /home/$USER/.ssh/id_rsa

Alternatively, just use ~ for your home directory.

$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

And the problem was fixed.

0) Short answer

Add in your .ssh/config one line at the beginning:

AddKeysToAgent yes

and run git/ssh/... If it's not enough, check your ssh version and check that ssh-agent is loaded with these instructions:

1) Check the openssh version

Firstly check that your ssh version, it must be greater of equal to 7.2:

ssh -V

2) Edit the config file

If it's the case just add in your .ssh/config one line at the beginning:

AddKeysToAgent yes

3) Check if ssh-agent is already open

Usually distributions automatically load an ssh-agent. To check it, run

ps aux | grep -v grep | grep ssh-agent

If you don't see any line containing it, you need to load it by running:

eval $(ssh-agent)

Note that this enable the agent only on the current terminal, so to enable it everywhere, you can try to add this line in your ~/.profile file and reboot.

This Atlassian document (archive.org backup) fixed the issue for me on Ubuntu 14.04 Server Edition:

Just add this values into your .bashrc file:

SSH_ENV=$HOME/.ssh/environment
   
# start the ssh-agent
function start_agent {
    echo "Initializing new SSH agent..."
    # spawn ssh-agent
    /usr/bin/ssh-agent | sed 's/^echo/#echo/' > "${SSH_ENV}"
    echo succeeded
    chmod 600 "${SSH_ENV}"
    . "${SSH_ENV}" > /dev/null
    /usr/bin/ssh-add
}
   
if [ -f "${SSH_ENV}" ]; then
     . "${SSH_ENV}" > /dev/null
     ps -ef | grep ${SSH_AGENT_PID} | grep ssh-agent$ > /dev/null || {
        start_agent;
    }
else
    start_agent;
fi

And after logging in, it asks for password only once and it caches. You don't need to enter it each time.