[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: eval vs. exec



Christian Jaeger wrote:
> Nori Heikkinen wrote:
> > ssh-add $HOME/.ssh/id_dsa </dev/null

Hmm... Don't you think you should put a passphrase on your key?  Not
having an encrypted key really lowers the security level.  And with
ssh-agent running you only have to authenticate once per session.
That is hardly a burden.

> >exec `ssh-agent`
> 
> Won't work; exec means, give up current shell and become the new 
> process - and that is a string here that should just give ~ 'could 
> not exec, file not found'.
> 
> This should maybe work:
> 
> exec ssh-agent bash -c 'ssh-add $HOME/.ssh/id_dsa </dev/null; exec fvwm2'

Clever!  I like it.  But I don't like the passwordless key.  :-(

But here is another idea.  Inside your .fvwm2rc file you could add the
following line to your InitFunction.

  + "I" Exec exec xterm -geometry 64x5 -e ssh-add &

Then change your exec line to be the following.

  exec ssh-agent fvwm2

This way when you start up your window manager it is a child of
ssh-agent and the agent will exit when the window manager does and so
will X, the normal way to log out.  When fvwm starts it will prompt
you once for a passphrase to authenticate with the agent.

[By the way, as to the subject line question, the two ways to invoke
ssh-agent would be A. eval `ssh-agent` or B. exec ssh-agent command.
Just making sure it is obvious that when you change from eval to exec
that you also change the rest of the command.]

Bob

Attachment: pgp4L_LjcP9wL.pgp
Description: PGP signature


Reply to: