SSH-ASKPASS-NOINPUT(1)

📦
version 0.5.3 · 4 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💖 ssh-askpass-noinput(1) — the manual, but make it a group chat 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to ssh-askpass-noinput from the SSH-ASKPASS-NOINPUT manual. it's giving "tiny program, huge personality" and honestly? i'm obsessed. let's get into it 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

ssh-askpass-noinput — an ssh-askpass implementation that's literally only here to ask you allow/deny questions 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

ssh-askpass-noinput text

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so ssh-askpass-noinput is an implementation of ssh-askpass, right? but here's the plot twist — it does not actually ask you for a password. like, at all. no cap. instead it only asks a binary (allow/deny) question, and then it exits with 0 for allow and 1 for deny. that's it. that's the whole vibe check. ✨

and it is not intended as a general replacement for ssh-askpass, bestie, i need you to hear me on this. it's for special applications that genuinely don't care about a passphrase. niche queen behavior. 👑

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

as usual with ssh-askpass implementations, ssh-askpass-noinput only takes a single argument, which will be presented as the question.

  • text — the question, the prompt, the moment of truth. this one argument gets shown to you and you go yes or no. 🫶

💜 BACKGROUND AND APPLICATIONS 💜

okay so why does this exist, you ask? some programs (ssh-agent and ssh-agent-filter) use ssh-askpass to have users confirm actions without entering a passphrase. ssh-agent does this when it's used via ssh-add's -c option. periodt.

but here's the thing that's lowkey messy — those programs do not indicate that it's a binary question (because in the classical ssh-agent invocation, there's no option to do this, iykyk). so they just expect the user to ignore the text input and click "OK" or "Cancel", whereupon they read the askpass's exit status. main character energy, honestly. 😭

so for programs that are known to only ask those questions, setting SSH_ASKPASS=ssh-askpass-noinput in their environment will make them use this particular implementation for their questions. slay. 🎀

⚠️ but bestie — it should never be installed as /usr/bin/ssh-askpass. not ever. don't do it. i'm so serious. 💀

🔮 FUTURE 🔮

this solution is obviously a hack. it's giving duct tape and prayers. it's needed until a way is established and implemented for ssh-askpass to be used more flexibly. so like… we wait. 🙈

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

👑 AUTHORS 👑

ssh-askpass-noinput was conceived by chrysn chrysn@fsfe.org.

both the program and this man page are free software 💖 — you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

💅 AUTHORS (yes, again, double credits, iconic) 💅

chrysn chrysn@fsfe.org

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🌟 this edition of SSH-ASKPASS-NOINPUT() is dated 2013-10-26 — yes it's been serving cunt since 2013 and it's still that girl. bye ily, go allow some stuff responsibly 🌸🫶✨

📦 where this page comes from