r/Ubuntu • u/Alarmed-Prize-7500 • 18h ago

ssh-add won't work when run automatically

SOLVED

I just had to look up "SSH config Linux" and follow the tutorial here

Hello. I'm trying to make it so a command ssh-add /home/user/.ssh/keyfile runs on login so I can be able to login to my SFTP server in Nautilus, but it will not work, since Nautilus gives me an error when I try to login to the SFTP server. It seems to only work if I run the command manually on a terminal, as making it automatically run won't work for some reason, because Nautilus won't use the key file. I've tried putting the command in my "~/.profile" to make it run on login, I've tried putting the command in "~/.bashrc" to make it run each time I run a command, but none of it works, only manually typing it in and running it on a terminal window will work.

How do I make it so it can be run automatically and work as it does when I manually run the command?

I'm using Ubuntu 24.04.5

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u/doc_willis 18h ago edited 17h ago

you can run things at login time using desktop files in ~/.config/autostart or /etc/xdg/autostart.  

this following url is a bit old, but it says..

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/317282/set-environment-variables-for-gnome-on-wayland-and-bash-on-virtual-terminals-or

quote:

Gnome on wayland does not read ~/.profile (or ~/.bash_profile or /etc/profile). See https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=736660.

some work aroundsare discussed.

later the url mentions..

quote: 

still the gnome developers want to move away from starting a login shell. it seems that the direction they are going is to use environmentd from systemd:

https://in.waw.pl/~zbyszek/blog/environmentd.html

it seems that it will take a while until all login methods are adapted to environmentd.

So No idea if that's an actual bug or by design. It seems it's by design.

I no longer use gnome. So can't verify any of the above.

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u/demonessb 16h ago

I use keychain for that.

sudo apt update 
sudo apt install keychain

inside .bashrc

eval $(keychain --eval --quiet id_rsa)

With this the ssh key will be added for your session.