[PATCH] PreferAskpass in ssh_config

[yath at yath.eu.org]

On Mon, Oct 04, 2004 at 10:05:56AM -0500, Ben Lindstrom wrote:
> > > And this solves what real world problem?
> > No keyboard grab when being prompted for passwords (w/o key auth) or for
> > passphrases (when generating one with ssh-keygen), etc.
> ssh-keygen doesn't use ssh-agent.. So again I ask what are you talking
> about?

That's exactly the point. All programs use read_passphrase(), but only
ssh-add tells read_passphrase() to use ssh-askpass.

So if I *want*, e.g. ssh-keygen to use ssh-askpass, I simply set
$SSH_USE_ASKPASS to "prefer". ssh-askpass has nothing to do with
ssh-agent (just that it's only used in conjunction with ssh-add), so why
not use it for all other password prompts (if the user wants so)?

You *cannot* say "well, then do key auth" - I have to type at least the
password for logging in to the remote host (scp id_foo.pub) from the
tty, and maybe two times my (new) passphrase when generating a key pair.

So why shouldn't we give the user the possibility to use a more secure
mechanism to enter passwords? Just suppose focus-follows-mouse and an
IRC client.


Seba 'having seen mouse cursors moving w/o moving the mouse' stian.
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