Question

I have the following script:

 #!/bin/sh
 ...
 rsync -e 'ssh -i "$SSHKeyPath"'

The error is:

Warning: Identity file $SSHKeyPath not accessible: No such file or directory.

How can I get $SSHKeyGen evaluated before rsync gets called?

UPDATE:
fwiw, this is on OSX.

Answer 1

There are several solutions that I believe are easier:

• Use ssh-agent(1) to unlock the private portion of the key for ssh(1) processes as they need it. This is by far the easiest mechanism to use.

• Use ~/.ssh/config to select a different private key based on hostname:

  host backuphost
      IdentityFile ~/.ssh/different_key
  

Then there is no need to specify a key on the command line.

Update

Given that you’re trying to separate the key from the individual user, this makes a lot more sense to me now. If you use another variable in sh you can make your original approach work:

$ cat foo.sh
#!/bin/sh

SSHKeyPath=/home/sarnold/.ssh/id_rsa
KEYARG="ssh -i $SSHKeyPath"

rsync -e "$KEYARG" /tmp/pointless localhost:/tmp/new_pointless
$ ./foo.sh 
Enter passphrase for key '/home/sarnold/.ssh/id_rsa': 
skipping directory pointless