Clean basic E2 Ubuntu - ssh-add and github access hang

[Larry2]

I booted up a plain jane E2 instance running ubuntu. Most of my startup actions worked fine. However when I try to run ssh-add  or git clone git@github.com:...  the command hangs.  There's nothing in syslog or auth.log.  The hang seems indefinite.  I let it stew for over an hour.

This is repeatable. I started up a second instance and the very first thing I tried were

> ssh-kegen = success
> eval 'ssh-agent'  = success
> ssh-add => hangs

[ErnestoC · Accepted solution]

I tried your commands as-is in a GCE instance and it seems to get stuck as well. However, using eval "$(ssh-agent -s)” as shown in the Github guide to add the SSH key works correctly. Can you try if this works in your startup script? You could also share the script to me to test it completely.