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Why does this message “Could not open a connection to your authentication agent” pop out of nowhere? Check these ITtutoria guides for analyses and solutions.
Why Did It Occur?
Why did we receive the message: “Could not open a connection to your authentication agent”? It occurs during our attempt to insert key paraphrases using ssh-add commands. The wrongly-assigned ssh-agent caused the issue, leading to people encountering troubles in unusual circumstances.
Aside from Git programs, the error is also common in many situations, such as the adoption of Raspberry Pi to operate Raspbian, embedded routers using fished-out command prompt, or Android Linux terminals.
Example (Problem):
$ git push heroku master
Warning: Permanently added the RSA host key for IP address '50.19.85.132' to the list of known hosts.
! Your key with fingerprint b7:fd:15:25:02:8e:5f:06:4f:1c:af:f3:f0:c3:c2:65 is not authorized to access bitstarter.
To fix the problems, users often try to add key passphrases by running the “ssh-add” from the command lines.
Once done, the error “Could not open a connection to your authentication agent” will occur, with no useful text. We could say that the command “ssh-add” is not useful here.
Here, we attempted to insert the keys, but the error happened:
Example (Error):
$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
Could not open a connection to your authentication agent.
How to Fix The Error: “Could Not Open A Connection to Your Authentication Agent”
The most straightforward approach is to start “ssh-agent” before operating the “ssh-add” commands.
Example (Solution 1):
eval `ssh-agent -s`
ssh-add
Remember that this code will kickstart the agents for Windows’ msgysgit Bash. You might have to turn to other variants of these commands if you use different operating systems or shells. For instance, here are the codes for CentOS versions:
Example (Solution 2):
exec ssh-agent bash
Another version for Window 7’s GitBash:
Example (Solution 3):
eval $(ssh-agent)
What about users who use Cygwin? The steps may be more complex (but still easy to operate)
Step 1. Add the “bashrc” file to the home folder.
Step 2. Open that file and paste the codes:
Example (Solution 4):
#!/bin/bash
eval `ssh-agent -s`
ssh-add
Step 3. This code assumes that the keys are in the conventional “~/.ssh/id_rsa” location. If they are not, incorporate full paths after your “ssh-add” commands.
Step 4. Create “~/.ssh/config” (or add to it) using the contents:
Example (Solution 4) (cont):
ForwardAgent yes
Some tutorials for Forwarding Agent params use “Yes, ” which is a typo. Remember to fix it to all-lowercase, or else the errors might occur.
Step 5. Restart your program. The system might require you to insert the passphrases once, but that’s it! (until the session ends or kills the ssh-agent).
Conclusion
This article has given many solutions and examples to fix the error “Could not open a connection to your authentication agent”. For similar Git errors (such as “bower enogit git is not installed or not in the path“), feel free to browse ITutoria QA sections for tips from our support staff.
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