% SSH-ASKPASS-NOINPUT % chrysn [email protected] % 2013-10-26
ssh-askpass-noinput - an ssh-askpass implementation for asking allow/deny questions
ssh-askpass-noinput text
ssh-askpass-noinput is an implementation of ssh-askpass, which does not actually ask for a password; instead, it only asks a binary (allow/deny) question and exits with 0 for allow and 1 for deny.
It is not intended as a general replacement for ssh-askpass, but for special applications that don't care about a passphrase.
As usual with ssh-askpass implementations, ssh-askpass-noinput only takes a single argument, which will be presented as the question.
Some programs (ssh-agent and ssh-agent-filter) use ssh-askpass to have
users confirm actions without entering a passphrase; ssh-agent does this when
used via ssh-add's -c option. They do not indicate that it is a binary
question (because in the classical ssh-agent invocation, there is no option to
do this), and expect the user to ignore the text input and click "OK" or
"Cancel", whereupon they read the askpass's exit status.
With programs that are known to only ask those questions, setting
SSH_ASKPASS=ssh-askpass-noinput in their environment will make them use this
particular implementation for their questions. It should never be installed as
/usr/bin/ssh-askpass.
This solution is obviously a hack, which is needed until a way is established and implemented for ssh-askpass to be used more flexibly.
ssh-agent-filter(1), ssh-agent(1), ssh-askpass(1)
ssh-askpass-noinput was conceived by chrysn [email protected].
Both the program and this man page are free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.