Announcing a new project allowing the use of rsync with ssh in password authentication mode

[Shachar Shemesh]

Hi all,


I know the question came up once or twice lately, and as I needed
something similar myself, I actually sat down and wrote it. The project
is called "sshpass", and it is available from sourceforge at
http://www.sf.net/projects/sshpass. In a nutshell, it allows
non-interactive use of ssh in password authentication mode.


This warning is repeated in the README, as well as at the project's
summary page, but I'll repeat it here never the less. This is NOT an
ideal solution, security wise. Anyone and everyone are encouraged to use
ssh's public key authentication instead of this little utility. It is
only meant for use in cases where public key authentication is out of
the question, for one reason or another.


Usage example (taken from the man page):

Performing a password based authentication for rsync, with the password
given o nthe command line (sshpass' least secure mode of them all):

rsync --rsh='sshpass -p 12345 ssh -l test' host.example.com:path .


Hoping this proves useful enough for everyone. Sorry about the noise.


          Shachar