I have my own ssh server (on raspberry pi 5, Ubuntu Server 23) but when I try to connect from my PC using key authentication (having password disabled), I get a blank screen. A blinking cursor.

However, once I enter the command eval "$(ssh-agent -s)" and try ssh again, I successfully login after entering my passphrase. I don’t want to issue this command every time. Is that possible?

This does not occur when I have password enabled on the ssh server. Also, ideally, I want to enter my passphrase EVERYTIME I connect to my server, so ideally I don’t want it to be stored in cache or something. I want the passphrase to be a lil’ password so that other people can’t accidentally connect to my server when they use my PC.

  • smbEnglish
    6·
    30 days ago

    The whole point of ssh-agent is to remember your passphrase.

    replace passphrase with private key and you’re very correct.

    passphrases used to login to servers using PasswordAuthentication are not stored in the agent. i might be wrong with technical details on how the private key is actually stored in RAM by the agent, but in the context of ssh passphrases that could be directly used for login to servers, saying the agent stores passphrases is at least a bit misleading.

    what you want is:

    • use Key authentication, not passwords
    • disable passwordauthentication on the server when you have setup and secured (some sort of backup) ssh access with keys instead of passwords.
    • if you always want to provide a short password for login, then don’t use an agent, i.e. unset that environment variable and check ssh_config
    • give your private key a password that fits your needs (average time it shoulf take attackers to guess that password vs your time you need overall to exchange the pubkey on all your servers)
    • change the privatekey every time immediately after someone might have had access to the password protected privkey file
    • do not give others access to your account on your pc to not have to change your private key too often.

    also an idea:

    • use a token that stores the private key AND is PIN protected as in it would lock itself upon a few tries with a wrong pin. this way the “password” needed to enter for logins can be minimal while at the same time protecting the private key from beeing copied. but even then one should not let others have access to the same machine (of course not as root) or account (as user, but better not at all) as an unlocked token could also possibly be used to place a second attacker provided key on the server you wanted to protect.

    all depends on the level of security you want to achieve. additional TOTP could improve security too (but beware that some authenticator providers might have “sharing” features which could compromise the TOTP token even before its first use.