With regards to using ssh-agent, this is what I have in my .bash_profile: export SSH_ENV=$HOME/.ssh/environment_${HOSTNAME} function start_agent {

With regards to using ssh-agent, this is what I have in my .bash_profile: export SSH_ENV=$HOME/.ssh/environment_${HOSTNAME} function start_agent { echo -n "Initialising new SSH agent... " touch ${SSH_ENV} chmod 600 ${SSH_ENV} /usr/bin/ssh-agent -s | sed 's/^echo/#echo/' > ${SSH_ENV} echo "succeeded." . ${SSH_ENV} > /dev/null } # Don't use Gnome keyring for SSH if [[ $SSH_AUTH_SOCK =~ /run/user ]]; then unset SSH_AUTH_SOCK unset SSH_AGENT_PID fi # Source SSH settings, if applicable ssh-add -l > /dev/null 2>&1 if [ $? -eq 0 -o $? -eq 1 ]; then echo "SSH Agent found." else echo -n "Looking for SSH Agent... " if [ -f "${SSH_ENV}" ]; then . ${SSH_ENV} > /dev/null ssh-add -l > /dev/null 2>&1 if [ $? -eq 0 -o $? -eq 1 ]; then echo "found pid: ${SSH_AGENT_PID}." else echo "not found." start_agent; fi else start_agent; fi ssh-add -l fi This starts up a new ssh-agent if it can't find one, but uses the same agent if it is already running on this machine (I remote into a bunch of systems). So even if I use a bunch of screen sessions, or remote in to a machine multiple times, it will always try to use the same agent.