Git keeps asking me for my ssh key passphrase

Question

I created keys as instructed in the github tutorial, registered them with github, and tried using ssh-agent explicitly — yet git continues to ask me for my passphrase every time I try to do a pull or a push.

What could be the cause?

Answer 1

Once you have started the SSH agent with:

eval $(ssh-agent)

Do either:

1. To add your private key to it:

    ssh-add
   

   This will ask you your passphrase just once, and then you should be allowed to push, provided that you uploaded the public key to Github.

2. To add and save your key permanently on macOS:

    ssh-add -K  
   

   This will persist it after you close and re-open it by storing it in user's keychain.

   If you see a warning about deprecated flags, try the new variant:

    ssh-add --apple-use-keychain 
   

3. To add and save your key permanently on Ubuntu (or equivalent):

     ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
   

Answer 2

This has been happening to me after restarts since upgrading from OS X El Capitan (10.11) to macOS Sierra (10.12). The ssh-add solution worked temporarily but would not persist across another restart.

The permanent solution was to edit (or create) ~/.ssh/config and enable the UseKeychain option.

Host *
    UseKeychain yes

Related: macOS keeps asking my ssh passphrase since I updated to Sierra

Answer 3

If you've tried ssh-add and you're still prompted to enter your passphrase then try using ssh-add -K. This adds your passphrase to your keychain.

Update: if you're using macOS Sierra then you likely need to do another step as the above might no longer work. Add the following to your ~/.ssh/config:

Host *
  UseKeychain yes

Answer 4

I would try the following:

1. Start GitBash
2. Edit your ~/.bashrc file
3. Add the following lines to the 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

4. Save and close the file
5. Close GitBash
6. Reopen GitBash
7. Enter your passphrase

Answer 5

What worked for me on Windows was (I had cloned code from a repo 1st):

eval $(ssh-agent)
ssh-add 
git pull 

at which time it asked me one last time for my passphrase

Credits: the solution was taken from https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/12195/how-to-avoid-being-asked-passphrase-each-time-i-push-to-bitbucket

Answer 6

Try adding this to your ~/.ssh/config:

Host *
   AddKeysToAgent yes
   UseKeychain yes
   IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

... assuming your private key is named id_rsa

Answer 7

previously -K flag is used to add key but now:

ssh-add --apple-use-keychain

The -K and -A flags are deprecated and have been replaced by the --apple-use-keychain and --apple-load-keychain flags, respectively.

---

LATER EDIT: you may need to add ssh-add --apple-load-keychain -q to your .bash_profile or .bashrc or .zshrc or equivalent.

Answer 8

Run the following:

eval $(ssh-agent) && ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa &>/dev/null

Enter the passphrase, then check git. Git should not ask for passphrase after this command.

The original source: https://gist.github.com/egoens/c3aa494fc246bb4828e517407d56718d

Answer 9

If you are not using GitBash and are on Windows - you need to start your ssh-agent using this command

start-ssh-agent.cmd

If your ssh agent is not set up, you can open PowerShell as admin and set it to manual mode

Get-Service -Name ssh-agent | Set-Service -StartupType Manual

Answer 10

If the above solutions are not working for me, one thing to check is that you actually have the public key too (typically id_rsa.pub). It is unusual not to, but that was the cause for me.

To create your public key from your private key:

ssh-keygen -y -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa > ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Answer 11

I had a similar issue, but the other answers didn't fix my problem. I thought I'd go ahead and post this just in case someone else has a screwy setup like me.

It turns out I had multiple keys and Git was using the wrong one first. It would prompt me for my passphrase, and I would enter it, then Git would use a different key that would work (that I didn't need to enter the passphrase on).

I just deleted the key that it was using to prompt me for a passphrase and now it works!

Answer 12

It sounds like you may be having trouble with SSH-Agent itself. I would try troubleshooting that.

1) Did you do ssh-add to add your key to SSH?

2) Are you closing the terminal window between uses, because if you close the window you will have to enter the password again when you reopen it.

Answer 13

For Windows or Linux users, a possible solution is described on GitHub Docs, which I report below for your convenience.

You can run ssh-agent automatically when you open bash or Git shell. Copy the following lines and paste them into your ~/.profile or ~/.bashrc file:

env=~/.ssh/agent.env

agent_load_env () { test -f "$env" && . "$env" >| /dev/null ; }

agent_start () {
    (umask 077; ssh-agent >| "$env")
    . "$env" >| /dev/null ; }

agent_load_env

# agent_run_state: 0=agent running w/ key; 1=agent w/o key; 2= agent not running
agent_run_state=$(ssh-add -l >| /dev/null 2>&1; echo $?)

if [ ! "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK" ] || [ $agent_run_state = 2 ]; then
    agent_start
    ssh-add
elif [ "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK" ] && [ $agent_run_state = 1 ]; then
    ssh-add
fi

unset env

If your private key is not stored in one of the default locations (like ~/.ssh/id_rsa), you'll need to tell your SSH authentication agent where to find it. To add your key to ssh-agent, type ssh-add ~/path/to/my_key.

Now, when you first run Git Bash, you are prompted for your passphrase. The ssh-agent process will continue to run until you log out, shut down your computer, or kill the process.

Answer 14

In case you are on Win10:

I had the same problem. (previously had to update ssh-agent individually with a script from here because of a different problem)

Git did access my ssh config (git pull threw exceptions when I had nonsense-lines in ssh config), but never seemed to care about the private key I had added via ssh-agent and referenced in my config.

What fixed the problem was to execute the following command in PowerShell:

git config core.sshCommand (get-command ssh).Source.Replace('\','/')

(Details are in this link)

Answer 15

I try different solutions but nothing help. But this steps (My GitBash SSH environment always asks for my passphrase, what can I do?) from Bitbucket.com seams works well :

The idea is:

1. you create ~/.bashrc file

2. add follow script:

    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
   

3. re-run Bash

Answer 16

Another possible solution that is not mentioned above is to check your remote with the following command:

git remote -v

If the remote does not start with git but starts with https you might want to change it to git by following the example below.

git remote -v // origin is https://github.com/user/myrepo.git
git remote set-url origin git@github.com:user/myrepo.git
git remote -v // check if remote is changed

Answer 17

on mac, if your ssh key need passphrase everytime and you want to skip it, then you can try below, it works fine for me

1. eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
2. ssh-add -K .ssh/id_rsa
3. add this default ssh configuration works for me

Host *
AddKeysToAgent yes
UseKeychain yes
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Answer 18

Update the url of the origin remote using SSH instead of HTTPS;

git remote set-url origin "SSH URL COPIED FROM GIT REPO."

This what works with me.

Answer 19

If you happen to be using fish, there's a gist for it:

# config.fish
if not pgrep -f ssh-agent > /dev/null
  eval (ssh-agent -c)
  set -Ux SSH_AUTH_SOCK $SSH_AUTH_SOCK
  set -Ux SSH_AGENT_PID $SSH_AGENT_PID
  set -Ux SSH_AUTH_SOCK $SSH_AUTH_SOCK
end

Answer 20

Seems that your local repo hasnt updated with ssh keys...at least this is what happened to me when going from https to ssh.

Have you done a remote reset?

git remote set-url origin <ssh url>

Answer 21

Maybe not the most secure way to fix this, but simply do not set a passphrase, it is optional. If you don't set a passphrase, it will not ask for it. You can change the passphrase with

$ ssh-keygen -p -f ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
> Enter old passphrase: [Type old passphrase]
> Key has comment 'your_email@example.com'
> Enter new passphrase (empty for no passphrase): [Type new passphrase]
> Enter same passphrase again: [Repeat the new passphrase]
> Your identification has been saved with the new passphrase.

Answer 22

Idk if someone needs something different but this help me a lot https://stackoverflow.com/a/6445525/11891580

To me on every restart, I have to run ssh-add --apple-use-keychain to load credentials, so I add this command to the stack overflow answer and now its fixed

Answer 23

For skipping the passphrase we can create key without passphrase ))) But if this isn't a way to go For Windows I'm using the ssh-agent, you can add private key in it and remove from .ssh folder. How to setup ssh-agent:

# Check the current status of ssh-agent:
Get-Service | ?{$_.Name -like '*ssh-agent*'} | select -Property Name, StartType, Status

# Start the Service:
Start-Service ssh-agent

# Add your key as before:
ssh-add <path to the key>

ssh-agent works with C:\Windows\System32\OpenSSH\ssh.exe So we can setup this ssh.exe for git by creating environment variable:

GIT_SSH: C:\Windows\System32\OpenSSH\ssh.exe

This will be working for Git and Bash.

Also we can setup this path for TortoiseGit: Settings>Network>SSH>SSH Client

Answer 24

This command from GitHub Docs did the trick for me:

> Enter old passphrase: [Type old passphrase]
> Key has comment 'your_email@example.com'
> Enter new passphrase (empty for no passphrase): [Type new passphrase]
> Enter same passphrase again: [Repeat the new passphrase]
> Your identification has been saved with the new passphrase.