Manuel López-Ibáñez wrote:
Hi,
I get "Password: " prompts when a ssh into linux machines and "user (at)
hostname's password: " when I log into OpenBSD. The OpenBSD machine has
OpenSSH_4.1 and GNU/Linux has OpenSSH_3.9, so maybe this was introduced
between those versions. I really think it is nice that it tells the
hostname.
So the question is, is it possible to configure the prompt for password
of SSH? If so, how it is done?
Kind of. The reason you're seeing different prompts is that they're
using different authentication methods within the ssh protocol. Your
OpenBSD machine is using "password" authentication, whereas your Linux
system is using "keyboard-interactive" authentication.
In "keyboard-interactive", the prompt is supplied by the server (via
PAM, in your case). In "password" authentication, the prompt is
generated by the client.
As long as the server supports it, the easy way to get it to do what you
want is is to tell your client to try "password" authentication first
(see PreferredAuthentications in ssh_config(5).
Future versions of OpenSSH will probably include a host identifier of
some description with keyboard-interactive prompts.
If not, won't it be better that the password prompt of OpenSSH in
GNU/Linux is the same that the one in OpenBSD ?
I have searched the openssh web, read the man pages of ssh_config and
sshd_config. The only reference [1] I found to something similar does
not clarify anything at all.
Maybe there should be an FAQ entry for this.
--
Darren Tucker (dtucker at zip.com.au)
GPG key 8FF4FA69 / D9A3 86E9 7EEE AF4B B2D4 37C9 C982 80C7 8FF4 FA69
Good judgement comes with experience. Unfortunately, the experience
usually comes from bad judgement.
