OpenSSH with Mac Keychain

[Rainer Müller]

On 2018-01-31 21:28, Chao-Chin Yang wrote:
> I can continue to log into the remote system without entering again the
> passphrase.  However, once I completely log out of my Mac and re-log
> into my Mac, the terminal does not remember my passphrase anymore.

As of macOS 10.12 Sierra, this is the intended behavior:

https://developer.apple.com/library/content/technotes/tn2449/_index.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/DTS40017589

> After googling around, it seems that the Mac native SSH has added a new
> SSH keyword “UseKeychain”, while the MacPorts version does not have this
> keyword and is having problem talking to Keychain.  I cannot find any
> solution to this.
> 
> Does anyone know any solution or is working on one?

Unfortunately, the keychain support is a custom patch by Apple that is
not in the upstream sources. The patch will only be applied when
installing it with the +gsskex variant, however, I have not tested it
myself.

Personally, I usually use /usr/bin/ssh because of the keychain
integration, but I have the following lines in my ~/.ssh/config that
stop /opt/local/bin/ssh from choking on the unknown options:

  IgnoreUnknown AddKeysToAgent,UseKeychain
  AddKeysToAgent yes
  UseKeychain yes

Hope that helps,
Rainer