[lug] ssh-askpass

[Michael D. Hirsch]

On Friday 28 February 2003 12:51 pm, Hugh Brown wrote:
> For some time now, I have been using ssh-agent to start up my xsession.
> I then open up a terminal and do an ssh-add.  I haven't had any problems
> with it, but I have some users that don't remember to do it and don't
> want to remember.  they would rather have a little gui pop up and ask
> them for their ssh password right after they log in.
>
> It seems that ssh-askpass (and/or ssh-askpass-gnome) are the little gui
> tools to use, but I'm not sure what the "right" way is to invoke this on
> gui start up.
>
> I'd also like to set it up in /etc/skel so that all new users get this
> behavior by default.
>
> I've gone googling and everything seems to say that ssh-askpass will
> give you an X window interface to ssh-add, but doesn't say what the
> right way is to call it.
>
> I have discovered that you can pipe stuff to ssh-add (even non-existent
> commands) under rh8 and it will get the dialog box up, I would just like
> to know how to do it the right way and to make it the default for all
> new users created.

Make xsession startup inside your ssh-agent, like you already do.  Then in 
your .Xclients file (or .Xclients-default for RedHat) add 
ssh-add ~/.ssh/identity

This is essentially what I do, except that I use kde.  So .Xclients does
    exec ssh-agent $HOME/.Xclients-default
and .Xclients-default execs startkde.  Then in .kde/Autostart/ I have a 
file that runs the ssh-add command.

Michael