Fix for “ssh-add: Could not open a connection to your authentication agent.”

Posted by: Joel G Mathew Posted on: March 7, 2013 , , , , , ,

You might have tried adding a key with:

ssh-add .ssh/id_rsa

only to get this error:

ssh-add .ssh/id_rsa
Could not open a connection to your authentication agent.[/code]
If this happens, it is because your ssh agent is not running in the terminal.

Run this:

exec ssh-agent bash


which will cause it to resource your .bashrc files and start the agent.






















Now try readding the key again:


ssh-add .ssh/id_rsa
Identity added: .ssh/id_rsa (.ssh/id_rsa)