ssh-agent and eval (LAB 5.1)

k0dard

Hello,

I was wondering why do we run eval $(ssh-agent) before adding the ssh-key ?

Does ssh-agent only displays environment variables that will be assigned with eval ?

Also, why every time I run the ssh-agent command the PID changes ?

The lab is working without executing the mentioned command.

Thanks in advance

LioC

Hi k0dard,

When doing this lab, I was trying it on several OSes (various Ubuntu and CentOS). Sorry, I cant recall which one, but one of the OS would fail to execute the ssh-add command without running eval $(ssh-agent) . All the others however did not need it.

As mentioned here:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/351725/why-eval-the-output-of-ssh-agent

eval loads the environment variables that were outputed by ssh-agent and that are needed by ssh-add.

I cant reply more than that though.

Lionel.

k0dard

Thanks Lionel,

Great link, everything is clear

k0dard

Also, just to add that I was silly, the PID doesn't change but naturally every time we run eval $(ssh-agent) a new process is started...