[hf]

A few commenters do not seem to be aware that it is perfectly possible to use passphrase-protected keys for automated tasks (cronjobs and the like).

The excellent (though unfortunately named) keychain[0] utility provides a ready and powerful abstraction for both ssh-agent and gpg-agent.

[0] https://github.com/funtoo/keychain

[dmourati]

Huge fan. The old IBM SSH developerworks series is my favorite primer for folks new to SSH:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc.html http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc2/ http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc3/