Add SSH Key to MacOS Keychain permanently
Run ssh-agent
if it’s not already running
eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
Add SSH key to ssh-agent
ssh-add -K ~/.ssh/id_rsa
where id_rsa
is the actual filename of the key you’re adding. This should do it for OSX before Sierra.
MacOS Sierra
Create an SSH config file
nano ~/.ssh/config
Add the following to it
Host *
UseKeychain yes
AddKeysToAgent yes
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
UseKeychain yes
tells SSH to look in your OSX keychain for the key passphrase.IdentityFile
specifies the key you want to load. If you want to load multiple keys just add moreIdentityFile
entries, one per line.
Now add your key(s)
ssh-add -K ~/.ssh/id_rsa
For multiple keys, the config file will look like this:
Host *
UseKeychain yes
AddKeysToAgent yes
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/foo
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/bar
More about the ~/.ssh/config
file
The SSH config file lets you set defaults for all servers (host) as well as save settings like which key/port/user to use for specific ssh connections. Usually, i use Shuttle for one-click connections, and it picks up and lists all hosts from the ssh config file as well.
If you’re using the config file to add shortcuts for different servers, your config file may look like this
Host server1
HostName server1.cyberciti.biz
User nixcraft
Port 4242
IdentityFile /nfs/shared/users/nixcraft/keys/server1/id_rsa
Host nas01
HostName 192.168.1.100
User root
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/nas01.key
Once you have servers saved in your config file, you can connect to them by specifying their names, like so
ssh server1