In my (seemingly unending) quest to understand ssh, I've come across a
document that calls for running =eval 'ssh-agent'= from a command line.
I wondered why, as I thought I would get the same result from just running
=ssh-agent=, but the results are different -- see below:
$ eval `ssh-agent`
Agent pid 23929
$ ssh-agent
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/ssh-uLqQ9VWX0RL7/agent.23932; export SSH_AUTH_SOCK;
SSH_AGENT_PID=23933; export SSH_AGENT_PID;
echo Agent pid 23933;
Can anybody on here explain what is going on / why?
The command "ssh-agent" returns 3 lines. The "eval `ssh-agent`" command
makes bash (or any other sh-compatible shell) runs those three lines as if they
had been typed. Hence it defines two variables (SSH_AUTH_SOCK and
SSH_AGENT_PID) and prints "Agent pid 23933".
Greetings,
Loïc