ssh-agent-switcher

SSH agent forwarding and tmux done right

ssh-agent-switcher is a daemon that proxies SSH agent connections to any valid forwarded agent provided by sshd. This allows long-lived processes such as terminal multiplexers like tmux or screen to access the connection-specific forwarded agents.

More specifically, ssh-agent-switcher can be used to fix the problem that arises in the following sequence of events:

1. Connect to an SSH server with SSH agent forwarding.
2. Start a tmux session in the SSH server.
3. Detach the tmux session.
4. Log out of the SSH server.
5. Reconnect to the SSH server with SSH agent forwarding.
6. Attach to the existing tmux session.
7. Run an SSH command.
8. See the command fail to communicate with the forwarded agent.

The ssh-agent-switcher daemon solves this problem by exposing an SSH agent socket at a well-known location, allowing you to set SSH_AUTH_SOCK to a path that does not change across different connections. The daemon then looks for a valid socket every time it receives a request and forwards the request to the real forwarded agent.

Installation

ssh-agent-switcher is written in Rust so you will need a standard Rust toolchain in place. See rustup.rs for installation instructions.

Then use make to build and install the binary in release mode along with its manual page and supporting documentation:

make install MODE=release PREFIX="${HOME}/.local"

You may also use Cargo to install this program under ${HOME}/.cargo/bin, but the recommended method is to use make install as shown above because Cargo will not install anything other than the program binary:

cargo install ssh-agent-switcher

Usage

Extend your login script (typically ~/.login, ~/.bash_login, or ~/.zlogin) with the following snippet:

~/.local/bin/ssh-agent-switcher --daemon 2>/dev/null || true
export SSH_AUTH_SOCK="/tmp/ssh-agent.${USER}"

For fish, extend ~/.config/fish/config.fish with the following:

~/.local/bin/ssh-agent-switcher --daemon &>/dev/null || true
set -gx SSH_AUTH_SOCK "/tmp/ssh-agent.$USER"

Security considerations

ssh-agent-switcher is intended to run under your personal unprivileged account and does not cross any security boundaries. All this daemon does is expose a new socket that only you can access and forwards all communication to another socket to which you must already have access.

Do not run this as root.