Cron and ssh keys

[T o n g <mlist4suntong@yahoo.com>]

Hi,

How do you handle situations that you need to do rsync etc ssh related 
tasks in cron? 

I know it need my passphrase before hand, but what if (somehow) the 
machine is rebooted and I haven't get around keying the passphrase yet?

Is there any test mechanism before I let the ssh related tasks kick in?

I tried the following, 

 $ date; keychain --timeout 1 --nogui id_rsa; echo $?; date

but it never timeout as advertised:

       --timeout minutes
           Set a timeout in minutes on your keys.  This is conveyed to 
ssh-
           agent which does the actual timing out of keys since keychain
           doesn't run continuously.

Debian Squeeze. 

Thanks

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