Automatically start ssh-agent and add your keys in Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) – Ubuntu

Add the following to the end of your ~/.bashrc file, start a new prompt and you’re done!

if [ -z "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK" ] ; then
    eval `ssh-agent -s`
    ssh-add
fi

If this doesn’t work for you and you get an Could not open a connection to your authentication agent. error, you can try this older version of the snippet below.

if [ ! -S ~/.ssh/ssh_auth_sock ]; then
  eval `ssh-agent`
  ln -sf "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK" ~/.ssh/ssh_auth_sock
fi
export SSH_AUTH_SOCK=~/.ssh/ssh_auth_sock
ssh-add -l > /dev/null || ssh-add

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