Getting access to SSH inside a Crontab is often a problem for many as the environment in which your cron runs is not the same as your normal shell. Simply running ssh-add will not allow you to use your SSH Agent inside your crontab. Follow the below guide to setup your crontab to use your ssh-agent:
- Install Keychain.
- Add the following to your
~/.zloginfile which will be invoked on each login. This will allow your crontab (and normal shell) to use your ssh keys and bypass needing to punch in your password each time you need SSH. This will also span across multiple sessions and shells.
# Use keychain to keep ssh-agent information available in a file
/usr/bin/keychain "$HOME/.ssh/id_rsa"
. "$HOME/.keychain/${HOSTNAME}-sh"- Finally, prepend the following to your cron job command to allow it access to your new keychain.
. "$HOME/.keychain/${HOSTNAME}-sh"A full crontab example may look like the following:
0 2 * * * . "$HOME"/.keychain/${HOSTNAME}-sh; my_command --someflag > /dev/nullhttps://eli.thegreenplace.net/2013/10/08/some-notes-on-logging-and-ssh-access-from-cron-jobs
@durai23 that's an interesting thought, I'm not sure to be honest as I've never attempted this. I'm curious if you could continue forwarding to the next machine or if you'd need an intermediate step. Sadly I wouldn't know.