Managing mulltiple ssh-key pairs can be made easy by utilizing the power of ssh-agent. However, I'd like to have my ssh-sessions automatically attach to the ssh-agent or start a instance of ssh-agent if it's not already started. Starting the ssh-agent and attaching to it can be achieved by using these commands: [archy@server ~]$ ssh-agent -s > ${HOME}/.ssh/environment-$(hostname -s) [archy@server ~]$ source ${HOME}/.ssh/environment-$(hostname -s) This will create a file named 'environment-server' in the folder ~/.ssh with all information required to attach it and then source it to attach to the running ssh-agent. Reconnecting to the running ssh-agent can be done using this command again: [archy@server ~]$ source ${HOME}/.ssh/environment-$(hostname -s) Another thing to consider is not starting multiple ssh-agents, so we'll have to check there is a instance of ssh-agent running for the current user and then determine if we should attach to the currently r