How to permanently add a private key with ssh-add on Ubuntu?

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I have a private key protected with a password to access a server via SSH.

I have 2 linux (ubuntu 10.04) machines and the behavior of ssh-add command is different in both of them.

In one machine, once I use "ssh-add .ssh/identity" and entered my password, the key was added permanently, i.e., every time I shutdown the computer and login again, the key is already added.

In the other one, I have to add the key every time I login.

As far as I remember, I did the same thing on both. The only difference is that the key was created on the one that is added permanently.

Does anyone know how to add it permanently to the other machine as well?

ssh-agent ubuntu ssh key
13 Answers

I had the same issue on Ubuntu 16.04: some keys were added permanently, for others I had to execute ssh-add on every session. I found out that the keys which were added permanently had both private and public key located in ~/.ssh and the keys which were forgotten on every session had only private keys in ~/.ssh dir. So solution is simple: you should copy both private and public key to ~/.ssh before executing ssh-add.

P.S.: As far as I understand from Gnome wiki my method works thanks to gnome-keyring tool which is part of the Gnome Desktop Environment. Therefore my method should probably work only if you use Gnome or Gnome-based DE.

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