Running ssh-agent and gtk2-ssh-askpass under gdm

[dripton]

I assume you already know about ssh keys, and how ssh-agent and ssh-add are used to manage your passphrases, so you only have to type them once per session.

If you only use one console window, you type ssh-agent bash and then you type ssh-add and it all works. (keychain is a bash script to help with this.)

If you boot to runlevel 3 (a text console), and then run ssh-agent bash and ssh-add then startx you'll find that all the child xterms in your X session are children of ssh-agent and everything works well. However, runlevel 3 is ugly, and insecure (without additional configuration) in the typical office environment because anyone who walks up to your machine can ctrl-alt-bs to kill your locked X session and get your ssh-agent-enabled shell prompt. Many people prefer runlevel 5.

So the next question is "How do I set this up to work more conveniently with a graphical login, so I get prompted for my passphrase right after the graphical login and password prompts?" And the answer depends on your distribution and environment. You need to find the right place to insert the ssh-agent and ssh-askpass lines, amidst dozens of X configuration files.

Anyway, with Gentoo and gdm, it's pretty simple:

/etc/X11/gdm/gnomerc

[revertex]

I don't knew gtk2-ssh-askpass, gdm work's "out of box" with x11-ssh-askpass, but gtk2-ssh-askpass is pretty cool! Tanks!

[linux_girl]

ther is mine : (ssh-keygen with no passphras...)
i alway use fluxbox.

this killall runing ssh-agent then start one and export it to your X sesions. then lunch small app like gaim xmms gkrellm2 and finaly xscrennsaver