MacOS – How to make OS X not remember ssh key passphrase

macosssh

I have a passphrase on my ssh id_rsa key, and OS X asks me for the passphrase the first time I want to use it, but even if I decline to add it to my keychain, it doesn't ask me for a passphrase again until I reboot. How can I make it ask me for a passphrase every time I try to use it?

Best Answer

While reading GitHub documentation about adding ssh key to the ssh agent, I thought you might be able to prevent loading keys in the agent by modifying the ~/.ssh/config file like so:

Host *
 AddKeysToAgent no
 UseKeychain no
 IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

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I renamed the key to "id_rsa", instead of the actual name of the key, which I thought I had already tried, but after I did that, it worked.

MacOS 10.12 Sierra will not forget the ssh keyfile passphrase

To disable storing passphrase in keychain you should add following lines to ~/.ssh/config file:

Host *
UseKeyChain no

If you already have passphrase stored in keychain you can delete it using commands:

cd ~/Library/Keychains/<UUID>/
sqlite3 keychain-2.db 'delete from genp where agrp="com.apple.ssh.passphrases"'

If you would like to have a behavior like in OS X El Capitan or earlier (i.e. passphrase stored until logout or restart) simply add to ~/.ssh/config:

AddKeysToAgent yes

You don't need to start ssh-agent.

Best Answer

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MacOS 10.12 Sierra will not forget the ssh keyfile passphrase

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