Allow agent forwarding using Cmder (ConEmu)

Question

I am using cmder which runs ConEmu on Windows 8.1.

It has a built in Git functionality so I can pull/push git repositories in the console (like on a Linux console)

To authenticate I use a password protected SSH private key. If I do a git push With ConEmu, it will prompt me for the keys password each time. I can type 'start-ssh-agent' and enter my password once, and it will will auto-authenticate me in that ConEmu window, however if I close or open another window I need to run the command again.

How can I start an ssh-agent that will authenticate my key in every ConEmu window?

Answer 1

With the following snipped the SSH key is added during the startup of Cmder and the password has only be entered once per session:

@echo off
ssh-agent | grep -v echo | sed -e "s/^/@set /" | sed -e "s/;.*$//" - > call.cmd
call call.cmd
del call.cmd
ssh-add "%HOME%\.ssh\id_rsa"
@echo on

Add the code to cmder/config/user-profile.cmd in the current Cmder version or to cmder/vendor/init.bat for older versions.

Edit: Newer versions of cmder have the following lines in the user-profile.cmd which does the same using git:

:: uncomment this to have the ssh agent load when cmder starts
call "%GIT_INSTALL_ROOT%/cmd/start-ssh-agent.cmd"