Re: Enlarging the question Was: Re: Does pclcvs support ssh protocol ?

[Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null>]

Xavier Maillard <xma@gnu.org> writes:

>    Pierre Lorenzon <devel@pollock-nageoire.net> writes:
>
>    > From: Mike Mattie <codermattie@gmail.com>
>    > Subject: Re: Does pclcvs support ssh protocol ?
>    > Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 23:11:56 -0800
>    >
>    >> On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:54:09 +0100 (CET)
>    >> Pierre Lorenzon <devel@pollock-nageoire.net> wrote:
>    >> 
>    >> > From: Michael Hoffman <b3i4old02@sneakemail.com>
>    >> > Subject: Re: Does pclcvs support ssh protocol ?
>    >> > Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:31:54 +0000
>    >> > 
>    >> > > Pierre Lorenzon wrote:
>    >> > > 
>    >> > > >   Notice that I still do not have the answer to my question :
>    >> > > >   "yes or not is this password transaction implemented in
>    >> > > >   pcl-cvs like in tramp ?"
>    >> > > 
>    >> > > Now the question has changed.
>    >> > 
>    >> > 
>    >> >   Not really ! 
>    >> > 
>    >> >   Pierre
>    >> > 
>    >> > 
>    >> > 
>    >> 
>    >> The answer is clearly ssh-agent. There are a large number of security issues regarding keys,
>    >> memory locking, timed expiration, secure entry, etc. Emacs doesn't need to jump through all these
>    >> hoops when ssh-agent,pin-entry,gpg do this sort of thing
>    >> correctly with a robust code-base.
>    >
>    >   Yes ! do you mean that tramp for instance uses ssh-agent ? It
>    >   might be ; I didn't examine the code to answer this question
>    >   ...
>
>    Yes tramp use ssh-agent, if ssh-agent is started; if not you are prompted for a
>    passphrase (you have to create keys and use keys system, not password).
>    I don't use cvs for my files, i use svn.
>    With svn if you do your checkout throught ssh, and ssh-agent+keys system is
>    enabled, when you commit the change in your file, svn use automaticly ssh with
>    tramp.
>
> Do you have any good tuto to set this up ? I am one of these lazy
> people who'd rather type their password every two minutes ;)
> Ssh-agent could save me some precious time. Lat time I read about
> this, it was a pain (for me) to understand.
>
> AFAIK, depending on how one is starting GNU Emacs, the setup
> changes. I am mostly working from the linux console, GNU Emacs is
> launched through a screen server session which I am connecting
> with the help of emacsclient.
>
> I even have a system account which default login shell is
> /usr/bin/emacs thus I do not see how ssh-agent could be setup in
> this case.
>
> Regards
>
> 	Xavier
> -- 
> http://www.gnu.org
> http://www.april.org
> http://www.lolica.org
>

All you need to do to use ssh-agent is ensure that it is started in a
parent process of any sub-processes yo want to use or have the benefit
of the agent in. for example, on Debian systems, this is done as part of
the standard session setup. All I use to do is have a call to
ask-password in my xsession init script. However, if your using gnome
and seahorse, you don't even need to do that anymore. 

If you have /usr/bin/emacs as your login shell and your only running
under the console (not X), then all you would have to do is replace that
with a shell script that  starts ssh-agent and then possibly call
askpassword and then start emacs. 

Its really not that difficult or complex - just remember ssh-agent has
to be run in a parent process of anything you want that should be able
to take advantage of its facilities. 

Tim


-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au