Confused over ssh-agent

From: Phillip Lord (p.lord@russet.org.uk)
Date: 10/28/02 

From: Phillip Lord <p.lord@russet.org.uk>
Date: 28 Oct 2002 16:11:11 +0000

Hello all

I wonder if anyone here can help me. I am getting into a tangle trying
to use ssh-agent.

The background is this. I am using CVS over an ssh connection. I am
invoking cvs from within emacs. Most of the time this work, but an X
program asking for a password prompt pops up a lot (I am told that
this is ssh-askpass. For some commands emacs confused cvs, and it
tries to ask through a terminal instead, and then things go somewhat
pear shaped (the password prompt generally comes up in a read only
buffer). I suspect if I try to use emacs through VT100 (as I do
sometimes), then these problems will get much worse. Even without
this, typing in a password for every single version control command is
somewhat tiresome.

My initial solution to this is to get very confused, and then start
adding keys to the .ssh directory until the system no longer prompts
me for a password. This works okay, although I worry about the
security, as any compromise of my machine will leave the CVS machines
vulnerable.

In one case (when using a CVS off sourceforge) I have been stymied. I
have only a restricted shell account here, so can't log on, and can't
run play around with .ssh.

It's been suggested to me that ssh-agent is the way forward. I have
read as many tutorials as I can find, but am still left
confused. The man pages spend a lot of time explaining why it all
work, but I just want to know how to get it to work. If you will
forgive me, my interest in security tends to be limited to "does it
work?".

Can anyone point me a very simple and straightforward "type this, and
then type that" tutorial on how to get this all working, particularly
with the sourceforge type, restricted shell access.

Many thanks in advance for any help.

Cheers

Phil

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