ssh wants passphrase and password if accessed via remote VPN login

[Chris Green]

On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 05:08:40PM -0700, MR ZenWiz wrote:
> I have an Xubuntu 14.04.4 workstation at work as the base for most of
> my activities.  The actual work must be done on either Windows or a
> CentOS machine, and I have a dedicated CentOS 6.7 box for this.  I use
> ssh to log in on the CentOS box, and all is usually as I expect - no
> pass phrase, no password needed for the login.
> 
> In working from home over the last few days (and a month ago, I
> think), I use a Win7 VM for VPN access to log into the workstation
> remotely with PuTTY.
> 
> That works fine, but when I ssh to the CentOS box, ssh asks for my
> pass phrase and password on every login.
> 
> What would cause this for a remote ssh but not a local one, from the
> same originating box?
> 
That's fairly simple to answer:-

    When you are logged in locally the GUI login feeds your login
    password as the pass-phrase into the local ssh-agent (or whatever
    replaces it) so unlocks your key for logging in to remote systems.

    When you log in from a remote system using ssh the above doesn't
    happen so when you try and connect to something that needs your
    key then the system asks for the pass-phrase.

If you want to be asked only once then run ssh-agent after you have
logged in from the remote system.

-- 
Chris Green