Re: TRAMP sudo method not asking for password

[Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl>]

On 2019-01-16, at 23:42, Michael Albinus <michael.albinus@gmx.de> wrote:

> Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> writes:
>
> Hi Marcin,
>
>>> And this IS documented. etc/NEWS says in the Tramp section
>>>
>>> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>>> *** Validated passwords are saved by auth-source backends which support this.
>>> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>>>
>>> And in the Tramp manual, there is in (info "(tramp) Password handling")
>>>
>>> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>>>    If there doesn’t exist a proper entry, the password is read
>>> interactively.  After successful login (verification of the password),
>>> it is offered to save a corresponding entry for further use by
>>> ‘auth-source’ backends which support this.  This could be changed by
>>> setting the user option ‘auth-source-save-behavior’ to ‘nil’.
>>> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>>
>> Well, I don't often read NEWS.  And the above is not very clear (it says
>> nothing about the .authinfo file, for instance).
>
> Why should it? Tramp uses auth-source, which has different backends. It
> is not only the .authinfo file which gets the passwords, other backends
> like the Secret Service API behave similar.

Well, I didn't know anything about it.  (Perhaps not reading the TRAMP
manual was a mistake...  Still, just a mention of auth-source *might* be
a good idea when discussing TRAMP in the Emacs manual.  IDK.)

>> 1. Am I the only one that thinks that this change could be made a bit
>> more prominent?  Like using something like yes-or-no-p (as opposed to
>> y-or-n-p) by default, for example?  Saving passwords to a plain text
>> file is something big, which should not happen by accident, right?
>
> Again, we don't speak about plain files only. And yes, yes-or-no-p might
> fit better. This must be changed in auth-source.el.
>
> Let's wait for some few days, and if nobody objects, I'll change
> accordingly.

Thanks for the change (if it takes place), and for your time answering
my questions.

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://mbork.pl