OpenSSH

This article outlines support for the OpenSSH command line SSH client available from https://www.openssh.com/.

Generally, the installation of our Desktop Agent should automatically configure all the required settings outlined below for the most common use cases. Therefore, after installation, opening a terminal window (or command console in the case of Windows) and using the ssh command should be enough for the command to access the Desktop Agent keys and no further configuration necessary. If you have any problems with using the applications please feel free to contact our support team at support@jadaptive.com.

Linux/Unix

Any version of the OpenSSH client in current major distributions is supported. All that is required is that the SSH_AUTH_SOCK environment variable is set to point to ~/.desktop-ssh-agent/agent.sock

export SSH_AUTH_SOCK=~/.desktop-ssh-agent/agent.sock

Some distributions may have a default installation of ssh-agent which is tied to a keychain type application. The Desktop Agent will automatically disable the built-in agent in any Gnome based distribution and adds the necessary environment variables to ~/.bash_profile so that every shell can utilize the Desktop Agent.

For other non Gnome based distributions you should consult the distribution documentation for disabling this, however, you can override the default agent if you add the necessary export example above in your ~/.bashrc script.

OSX

The OpenSSH client that ships with all recent OSX versions are supported. It requires that the SSH_AUTH_SOCK environment variable is set in your ~/.bash_profile script. The Desktop Agent automatically configures this for you when you install it.

export SSH_AUTH_SOCK=~/.desktop-ssh-agent/agent.sock

OSX has a default installation of ssh-agent that can conflict with the Desktop Agent in some circumstances but these are generally related to GUI applications and not the ssh command launched via the Terminal. If you use a different shell then you may need to configure the environment manually after installation of the Desktop Agent.

Windows

OpenSSH on Windows is supported in Windows 10 1803 update.

Previous versions of the Windows OpenSSH client were limited to ed25119 keys and are not fully compatible. We advise that anyone wanting to use the Desktop/Mobile Agent applications ensure they are using the Windows 10 1803 update.

The Windows OpenSSH client uses a named pipe to communicate with the built-in ssh-agent service on \\.\pipe\openssh-ssh-agent This can be overridden with a user-level SSH_AUTH_SOCK environment variable. The Desktop Agent uses a named pipe of \\.\pipe\mobile-ssh-agent. This is automatically configured by the Desktop Agent during installation.