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Did you know that when connecting to a server wish ssh it will first send all your public ssh keys and then it will promt you for a password ? Sure it is just public keys, but still. See here for more https://github.com/FiloSottile/whosthere

ssh-agent helps with managing ssh keys, it can keep track of unlocked identity ssh keys making possible to enter the passphrase only once and use the unlocked key for all upcoming ssh connections. You can make it even more flexible by Sharing the same ssh-agent among multiple login sessions. Below is the best answer in my opinion, that I have used successfully may times.

function sshagent_findsockets {
    find /tmp -uid $(id -u) -type s -name agent.\* 2>/dev/null
}

function sshagent_testsocket {
    if [ ! -x "$(which ssh-add)" ] ; then
        echo "ssh-add is not available; agent testing aborted"
        return 1
    fi

    if [ X"$1" != X ] ; then
        export SSH_AUTH_SOCK=$1
    fi

    if [ X"$SSH_AUTH_SOCK" = X ] ; then
        return 2
    fi

    if [ -S $SSH_AUTH_SOCK ] ; then
        ssh-add -l > /dev/null
        if [ $? = 2 ] ; then
            echo "Socket $SSH_AUTH_SOCK is dead!  Deleting!"
            rm -f $SSH_AUTH_SOCK
            return 4
        else
            echo "Found ssh-agent $SSH_AUTH_SOCK"
            return 0
        fi
    else
        echo "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK is not a socket!"
        return 3
    fi
}

function sshagent_init {
    # ssh agent sockets can be attached to a ssh daemon process or an
    # ssh-agent process.

    AGENTFOUND=0

    # Attempt to find and use the ssh-agent in the current environment
    if sshagent_testsocket ; then AGENTFOUND=1 ; fi

    # If there is no agent in the environment, search /tmp for
    # possible agents to reuse before starting a fresh ssh-agent
    # process.
    if [ $AGENTFOUND = 0 ] ; then
        for agentsocket in $(sshagent_findsockets) ; do
            if [ $AGENTFOUND != 0 ] ; then break ; fi
            if sshagent_testsocket $agentsocket ; then AGENTFOUND=1 ; fi
        done
    fi

    # If at this point we still haven't located an agent, it's time to
    # start a new one
    if [ $AGENTFOUND = 0 ] ; then
        eval `ssh-agent`
    fi

    # Clean up
    unset AGENTFOUND
    unset agentsocket

    # Finally, show what keys are currently in the agent
    ssh-add -l
}

source