.ssh/config: “Bad configuration option: UseKeychain” on Mac OS Sierra 10.12.6

Question

I am trying to set up my ssh config on the Mac (Mac OS Sierra 10.12.6) in such a way that it stores the passphrase for my ssh key in the keychain. Previously I could do that

Answer 1

I just commented out the line and scp/ssh started working for me again.

Answer 2

Instead of ssh-add type ‘open .ssh/id_rsa’ and add it to the keychain

The UseKeychain option never appeared as bad on my config, but I have in the beginning, before any other host, the following

Host *
UseKeychain yes 

Host (...)

Answer 3

The accepted answer helped me but did not completely solve my problem because I had multiple options that were bad. Here is an example of what it might look like if you have this issue:

Host *
  IgnoreUnknown AddKeysToAgent,UseKeychain
  AddKeysToAgent yes
  UseKeychain yes
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Answer 4

It's the capital -K try lowercase -k!!

ssh-add -k ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Enter passphrase for /Users/tom/.ssh/id_rsa:
Identity added: /Users/tom/.ssh/id_rsa (/Users/tom/.ssh/id_rsa)

Answer 5

I had the same issue and i realized that when started to generate the key by following the instructions. The first step is this.

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "your_email@example.com"

I didn't change the email address but of course I have forgotten to do that :D. So make sure to not forget that step and all will be fine.

Answer 6

Try to specify another option, namely IgnoreUnknown like below:

Host *
  IgnoreUnknown UseKeychain
  UseKeychain yes

You can find more info about this here.

If you already have an IgnoreUnknown value, use comma seperated values

Host *
  IgnoreUnknown AddKeysToAgent,UseKeychain
  AddKeysToAgent yes
  UseKeychain yes