1

I’m using Git Bash on Windows, and I'm trying to use the Windows OpenSSH agent to manage my SSH keys. Despite successfully starting the SSH agent as a service, I encounter the following error when trying to add my key or list loaded keys:

Error connecting to agent: No such file or directory
or
Could not open a connection to your authentication agent.

What I've Tried:

  1. Starting the SSH agent manually:
eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
  • The agent starts and shows a PID, but connecting to it fails.
  1. Verifying the agent is running via PowerShell:
Get-Service ssh-agent
  • The service is running and set to automatic.
  1. Setting the SSH_AUTH_SOCK manually in Git Bash:
export SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/mnt/c/Users/chesswhiz/AppData/Local/ssh-agent.sock
  • Still results in a "No such file or directory" error.
  1. Confirming the existence of the socket file using:
ls -l /mnt/c/Users/chesswhiz/AppData/Local/ssh-agent.sock
  • The file does not exist or is not accessible from Git Bash.

Environment:

  • Windows 10
  • Git Bash (from Git for Windows)
  • Windows OpenSSH client and agent installed
  • The agent works properly when using PowerShell directly

Question:

How can I configure Git Bash to correctly connect to the Windows OpenSSH agent? Is there a way to make the agent socket accessible within Git Bash, or am I missing a crucial configuration step?

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4
  • Have you tried to use ssh-agent.exe in git-bash bundle? Commented Apr 5 at 21:05
  • @achang2 I have edited the answer to answer your first comment Commented Apr 6 at 21:50
  • 1
    Yes, this worked, thank you! Commented Apr 6 at 21:50
  • @achang2 and I have edited the answer to address your second comment Commented Apr 6 at 21:52

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2

I confirm that, using git bash, there is no /mnt:

C:\Users\vonc>where bash
C:\Users\vonc\prgs\gits\current\bin\bash.exe
C:\Users\vonc\prgs\gits\current\usr\bin\bash.exe
C:\Windows\System32\bash.exe

C:\Users\vonc>bash

vonc@voncfm MINGW64 /c/Users/vonc
$ cd /mnt
bash: cd: /mnt: No such file or directory

If you set anything in git bash, use paths starting with /c, not /mnt/c.
The Mingw-w64 upon which that bash is based on, has its cygdrive mounted on / by default (hence issues like git-for-windows/git issue 5067)

How do I tell git to use its own native ssh-agent.exe?

I always put Git folders before the Windows one:

C:\Users\vonc\home_senv\bin
C:\Users\vonc\prgs\gits\current\bin
C:\Users\vonc\prgs\gits\current\cmd
C:\Users\vonc\prgs\gits\current\usr\bin
C:\Users\vonc\prgs\gits\current\mingw64\bin
C:\Users\vonc\prgs\gits\current\mingw64\libexec\git-core
C:\WINDOWS\system32
C:\WINDOWS
C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem
C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\

That way, the ssh-agent.exe used by Git is C:\Users\vonc\prgs\gits\current\usr\bin\ssh-agent.exe.

when I try the ssh-add command it says "Could not open a connection to your authentication agent."

You can follow the GitHub guide: "Auto-launching ssh-agent on Git for Windows"

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