Issue

I tested several methods to connect an Agent to a Master but none of those works
I would like to use native ssh client to connect to my Agents.
SSH plugin randomly disconnects.

Environment

• Jenkins
• Jenkins LTS
• CloudBees Jenkins Enterprise (CJE)
• SSH Slave plugin
• CloudBees SSH Agents

Resolution

You could launch the agent with a command in the master and use command line SSH to do that. It uses a SSH native command to make the tunnel. It could be a way to move forward while you diagnose the main issue.

Use this command to launch the Agent, you have to replace words in capitals by your own values

ssh -i PATH_TO_KEY_WITHOUT_PASSPHRASE USER@HOST "cd AGENT_HOME_DIR && curl -O http://JENKINS_URL/jnlpJars/slave.jar && java -jar slave.jar"

You need a RSA key without passphrase and need to add this key as authorised key on each Agent (~/.ssh/authorized_keys)

ssh-keygen -t rsa -f $HOME/.ssh/test_rsa

Use this command to add the key to authorized keys in Agent, so that you can access the Agent from Master using that key

ssh-copy-id -i$HOME/.ssh/test_rsa USER@HOST