[TxMt] svn Bundle: ssh-askpass

[Allan Odgaard]

On 23. Jul 2007, at 12:07, Vassilis Rizopoulos wrote:

> I have a problem using the svn bundle with password protected  
> repositories and the problem is that the bundle can't find ssh- 
> askpass, which is to be expected since there's no ssh-askpass  
> anywhere in my system :).
> I've search around but all I found is some references to a python  
> ssh-askpass script.
> Any ideas how I can get this thing to work?

Normally we recommend setting up a public/private key-pair without a  
pass-phrase on the private key (setting a pass-phrase on the private  
key is effectively storing it encrypted, which is a good idea if you  
have to store the key on a server where others might be able to read  
it, but for your local machine, it’s hardly worth it).

Anyway, the ssh-askpass I assume is the default program used by ssh  
to query you for the pass-phrase, if you run ‘man ssh’ you’ll find  
this section:

   SSH_ASKPASS   If ssh needs a passphrase, it will read the
                 passphrase from the current terminal if it was run
                 from a terminal.  If ssh does not have a terminal
                 associated with it but DISPLAY and SSH_ASKPASS are
                 set, it will execute the program specified by
                 SSH_ASKPASS and open an X11 window to read the
                 passphrase.  This is particularly useful when call-
                 ing ssh from a .xsession or related script.  (Note
                 that on some machines it may be necessary to redi-
                 rect the input from /dev/null to make this work.)

I have no experience with actually setting this up though, but it  
sounds like it shouldn’t be that difficult. Let us know if you figure  
something out or would like some further pointers.

If simple, we should probably set this up in the Subversion bundle.  
Presently I have no private keys with pass-phrase, but I might play  
with it later.