[clug] ssh 'controlpath' - anyone used it?

[Andrew Janke]

> My question:
>  - does anyone on the list use, or have seen used, this feature

I haven't

> I know of 'ssh-agent', but it's an X-11 thing and I'm not trusting of
> something that caches cleartext passwords (if it kept tickets/keys/...
> that timed out, I'd be happier).

I use keychain for this.

I have two aliases in my .bashrc

alias k="eval \`keychain --eval ~/.ssh/my-key\`"
alias kk="source ~/.keychain/\$HOSTNAME-sh && kill \$SSH_AGENT_PID"

so I just type 'k' to add authentication to a xterm/terminal/shell and
then kk to "de-authenticate". Best part is that unlike my old
ssh-agent approach (did make it part of the gdm session) is that it
transfers between xterms and sessions.  I used to even get all
technical and change the color of the background of authenticated
shells vs non-authenticated via extra magic in the alias but it was
causing issues over ssh.  Hrm, one day I will get back to fiddling
with it again.


a