ssh-agent won't work after upgrading Ubuntu-MATE to 21.04

[Adam Funk]

On 2021-08-25, Adam Funk wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I upgraded Ubuntu-MATE from 20.10 to 21.04 yesterday morning (running
> a little late, I know) and ssh-agent stopped working properly. I use
> ssh keys a lot (especially for git and svn repositories) so this is
> driving me nuts and interfering with my work.
>
> Normally I log in to MATE, open a terminal, and use ssh-add to enter
> the passphrases and activate several keys, then I akeep using them
> freely for the time limit I set in ssh-add or until I log out.
>
>
> Now I'm getting "Could not open a connection to your authentication
> agent." in response to any ssh-add command.
>
> I can get it working in *one* terminal by running this:
>
> eval "$(ssh-agent)"
>
> but then ssh-add commands and anything using those keys (svn up, svn
> ci, git pull, git push) will only work in that same terminal, so I
> have to cd all over the place when moving between different tasks and
> start over if I accidentally close the magic terminal.

Well, I have found either a fix or a workaround for this. I added

# TEST 2021-08-25
eval "$(ssh-agent)"

to my ~/.profile file, logged out and back in again, and now ssh-add
and the related commands work the same way they did before the 21.04
upgrade. If anyone has an idea why this arbitrary-looking change was
needed, I'd like to know!

Thanks,
Adam