How to get default key/passphrase to work in xubuntu?

[Chris Green <cl isbd net>]

I run xubuntu 11.04 on my desktop system and have several ssh logins to
systems on my LAN and a couple further afield.

A couple of versions ago (10.04 I think it was) I manually cobbled
together various fixes and workarounds so that my login password was
also the default passphrase to unlock my ssh keys and thus my logins
worked with no further requests for the passphrase.

I'm now trying to get this to work again in xubuntu 11.04 and would
appreciate some help.

I suspect I need to clear my workarounds out and start with a clean
slate! :-)

What I need to know is what has to be installed (and what shouldn't be
installed) for this to work.  Then what do I need to set up to get my
login password to be used as the ssh default passphrase?

Currently I seem to have too many agent[like] things running:-

    chris     5776     1  0 12:21 ?        00:00:00 ssh-agent -s
    chris     5884     1  0 12:21 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/policykit-1-gnome/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1
    chris     3934     1  0 11:48 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/gnome-keyring-daemon --daemonize --login
    chris     5683     1  0 12:21 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/gnome-keyring-daemon --daemonize --login

I think I know why there are two gnome-keyring-daemon processes but I'm
not quite sure what starts that ssh-agent.

Remember this is an xubuntu system so the start-up sequence isn't wholly
standard gnome.

Thanks for any help/pointers you can offer.

-- 
Chris Green