more user friendly OpenSSH client error messages?

[Ward Vandewege]

Hi all,

RMS would like to see more user friendly OpenSSH client error messages.
Specifically, he would like to see the "permission denied" error messages
easier to understand.

If one tries to log into a machine that is configured to only accept
publickey authentication and the key doesn't match, the client output is

  $ ssh user at server
  Permission denied (publickey).

If the server also supports password authentication, the output is:

  $ ssh user at server
  user at server's password:
  Permission denied, please try again.
  user at server's password:
  Permission denied, please try again.
  user at server's password:
  Permission denied (publickey,password).

How about rewording the error message to something like this:

  Access denied: the server did not accept your [ssh key/password/ssh key or
  password] for user $username.

Thanks,
Ward.

-- 
Ward Vandewege <ward at fsf.org>
Free Software Foundation - Senior Systems Administrator