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SSH Agent Setup for Sway/Wayland (Fedora)

Problem

ssh-add fails with:

Could not open a connection to your authentication agent.

I could type eval "$(ssh-agent -s)" but I don't want to have to after I login to Sway.

Solution

Use a systemd user service to start ssh-agent at login, with a fixed socket path exported via ~/.bashrc.

Setup

1. Create the systemd user service

~/.config/systemd/user/ssh-agent.service:

[Unit]
Description=SSH key agent

[Service]
Type=simple
Environment=SSH_AUTH_SOCK=%t/ssh-agent.socket
ExecStart=/usr/bin/ssh-agent -D -a $SSH_AUTH_SOCK

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

2. Enable and start the service

systemctl --user enable --now ssh-agent.service

3. Export the socket path

Add to ~/.bashrc:

export SSH_AUTH_SOCK="${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR}/ssh-agent.socket"

This ensures the variable is available to Sway and all child processes (including tmux).

Usage

After logging back in, add your key once per session:

ssh-add

The agent persists for the lifetime of the login session.