Guide: How to use 1Password SSH WSL integration with programs other than Git

[songpola]

Hello, everyone!
I would like to share how I make 1Password SSH work with programs other than Git in NixOS-WSL.

According to the 1Password docs:

Instead of forwarding SSH agent requests, like with standard OpenSSH agent forwarding, you can effectively forward the entire SSH request from WSL to the ssh.exe process running on Windows.

You can configure Git to use ssh.exe, but not all programs can be configured like this.
For example, when using Docker Context.

My solution is to substitute the system openssh package for a custom one that symlinked ssh and ssh-add bins to the OpenSSH ssh.exe and ssh-add.exe on Windows, respectively. (Path: /mnt/c/Windows/System32/OpenSSH/)

So, I create a new derivation (package), using symlinkJoin (to avoid recompiling the openssh package), and then set the programs.ssh.package NixOS option to it.

You can check my nixos-config for example.

1. Create ssh-wsl-win derivation package

pkgs.symlinkJoin {
  name = "ssh-wsl-win";
  paths = [pkgs.openssh];
  postBuild = ''
    # ssh
    mv $out/bin/ssh $out/bin/ssh-wsl
    ln -s /mnt/c/Windows/System32/OpenSSH/ssh.exe $out/bin/ssh

    # ssh-add
    mv $out/bin/ssh-add $out/bin/ssh-add-wsl
    ln -s /mnt/c/Windows/System32/OpenSSH/ssh-add.exe $out/bin/ssh-add
  '';
}

• Note: I use snowfall-lib, so the package is automatically included in pkgs (just like an overlay).
• I renamed the original $out/bin/* bins to $out/bin/*-wsl for backup (ssh -> ssh-wsl, ssh-add -> ssh-add-wsl)
• Then, I symlinked the /mnt/c/Windows/System32/OpenSSH/ssh.exe

2. Set programs.ssh.package

• Note: The package is available under my namespace songpola by the snowfall-lib.

This way, you can use ssh and ssh-add as usual, and other programs will use it too. (You don't even need to alias them in the shells!) And if you somehow want to use the original commands, then you can just use ssh-wsl and ssh-add-wsl.