Re: unable to use SSH_ASKPASS

On Fri, Aug 05, 2005 at 09:50:47AM +0300, Popeanga Marian wrote:
>     starting ssh from a shell script and setting SSH_ASKPASS and DISPLAY
>  should involve executing the $SSH_ASKPASS.  Till now i wasn't able to do
>  it.

The key is the first phrase from the section of the man page you
quoted:

    If ssh DOES NOT have a terminal associated with it [emphasis added
    by me.]

A shell script that you start from your command line DOES have a
terminal associated with it, so if you are starting your test script
from the command line, it will not invoke the program specified by
SSH_ASKPASS.  As the man page explains, this is mostly useful for
starting ssh from ~/.xsession (to start an ssh session while your X
Window System session is starting up).  

The sentence before that is also important:

     SSH_ASKPASS
              If ssh needs a passphrase, it will read the passphrase
              from the current terminal if it was run from a terminal.

If you run ssh from your terminal, INCLUDING if you run it in a shell
script started from a terminal, the passphrase will be prompted for on
the terminal.

The reason it works from .xsession (or similar files) is because these
scripts were NOT started from a terminal...  They were started by the
X window system directly, which in turn was started by (usually) init.
None of these processes have a controlling terminal, so neither will
.xsession (or an ssh session started from it).

-- 
Derek D. Martin
http://www.pizzashack.org/
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