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Support OpenSSH's new ~/.ssh/agent socket location #59

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Copilot AI commented Nov 5, 2025 •
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OpenSSH moved agent sockets from /tmp to ~/.ssh/agent with a new naming pattern: s.<hash>.agent.<random> instead of agent.<pid>.

Changes

Search path - Added ~/.ssh/agent to default socket search locations while preserving /tmp priority

Socket patterns - Extended find/grep to match new socket format:

# Old: /tmp/ssh-xxx/agent.12345
# New: ~/.ssh/agent/s.8f4932df.agent.AzSubDP0S1

PID extraction - Conditional extraction based on socket name format:

  • Old-style (agent.\d+): extract PID using BASH_REMATCH
  • New-style (s.*. agent.*): skip extraction (PID not in filename)

Backward compatible with existing /tmp sockets, SSH_FIND_AGENT_PATH, and TMPDIR configurations.

Original prompt

This section details on the original issue you should resolve

<issue_title>Broken after OpenSSH's commit: moved agent listener sockets from /tmp to ~/.ssh/agent</issue_title>
<issue_description>First of all, thank you for your work! I've been using this tool for quite some time. :)

Now, after OpenSSH's commit openssh/openssh-portable@80162f9, the agent listener sockets were moved from /tmp to ~/.ssh/agent. Their reasoning is the following:

This ensures processes (such as Firefox) that have restricted filesystem access that includes /tmp (via unveil(3)) do not have the ability to use keys in an agent.

Fortunately, the -T flag on the ssh-agent command will return to placing the agent socket into the /tmp directory.

# ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc
ssh-add -l >&/dev/null || ssh-find-agent -a || eval $(ssh-agent -T) > /dev/null

Is updating this tool to consider the ~/.ssh/agent directory a good idea? Unfortunately, the name of the socket file does not appear to have the PID of the SSH agent in it anymore. It only appears to have a randomized string. E.g.:

$ eval $(ssh-agent)
Agent pid 11434

$ echo "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK"
/home/<user>/.ssh/agent/s.<hash_of_hostname>.agent.AzSubDP0S1
```</issue_description>

## Comments on the Issue (you are @copilot in this section)

<comments>
<comment_new><author>@wwalker</author><body>
Thank you.  I'll look into getting that change in soon.
</body></comment_new>
</comments>

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Copilot AI and others added 3 commits November 5, 2025 22:37
@wwalker
Add support for OpenSSH's new ~/.ssh/agent socket location
15c90fc 
Co-authored-by: wwalker <23478+wwalker@users.noreply.github.com>
@wwalker
Fix PID extraction for new-style socket names
d92b2c4 
Co-authored-by: wwalker <23478+wwalker@users.noreply.github.com>
@wwalker
Improve PID extraction safety and readability
3c05fc5 
Co-authored-by: wwalker <23478+wwalker@users.noreply.github.com>
Copilot AI changed the title [WIP] Update agent listener socket to use ~/.ssh/agent Support OpenSSH's new ~/.ssh/agent socket location Nov 5, 2025
Copilot AI requested a review from wwalker November 5, 2025 22:48
Copilot finished work on behalf of wwalker November 5, 2025 22:48
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Broken after OpenSSH's commit: moved agent listener sockets from /tmp to ~/.ssh/agent

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@wwalker