>> I wonder if currently SshClient class supports authentication via ssh-agent [2] configured via SSH_AUTH_SOCK environment variable?
The code seems to indicate that we do support this, though we have not had much experience using this - see org.apache.sshd.agent.SshAgent class implementations and try to figure it out. NOTE: may require some *native* library support - see tomcat-apr dependency... >> On the top of that I am interested in how to add support of Cygwin/MSYS >> sockets on Windows If you mean non-BSD sockets (e.g., Unix sockets) it depends on you want to do - support port forwarding ? Run SSH on top of them ? In any case, it would require non-trivial changes - you are welcome to clone the project and add this support - we always appreciate contributions. In this context, please look at https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SSHD-863 - perhaps you can build on that...
