Seamless ssh access

If you have access to multiple class accounts or vx/exam accounts, as part of your workflow, you may want to ssh into another account from the account you are currently at.

Start ssh agent in your current login session. This can be achieved in your .xsession
Add your private key to the agent using ssh-add. You can store multiple identities in the agent.
Forward the agent - Either use “ssh -A” or add “ForwardAgent yes” to your ~/.ssh/config

~/startsshagent script

#!/bin/bash

SSH_ENV=~/.ssh/environment.`hostname`

function start_agent {
    echo "Initialising new SSH agent..."
    /usr/bin/ssh-agent | sed 's/^echo/#echo/' > ${SSH_ENV}
    echo Succeeded
    chmod 600 ${SSH_ENV}
    . ${SSH_ENV}
    /usr/bin/ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa < /dev/null
}

# Source SSH settings, if applicable

if [ -f "${SSH_ENV}" ]; then
    echo "Found ${SSH_ENV}"
    . ${SSH_ENV}
    ps -ef | grep ${SSH_AGENT_PID} | grep 'ssh-agent' || {
        start_agent;
    }
else
    start_agent;
fi

~/.xsession script

. ~/startsshagent
exec startxfce4

~/.ssh/config

Host *
    ForwardAgent yes
    ForwardX11 yes
    StrictHostKeyChecking no

Other Methods

In your .xsession,

exec ssh-agent startxfce4

In your xterm,

eval $(ssh-agent)