That's what ssh-agent is for. You run ssh-agent and it will output environment variable for a unix domain socket. Then you run ssh-add and type in your passphrase. The ssh-agent caches your key and access is limited to your user (permissions on the unix socket). This is not secure enough for some of course.
Russell Coker wrote: > Is it possible to have the ssh client read the pass-phrase for an authorised > key from an environment variable? > > What I want to do is: > export PASS=`ssh-askpass` > for n in $MACHINES do > ssh $n command > done > unset PASS > > Or something similar. Basically I want to login to 30 machines and run some > command but without having to enter my pass-phrase 30 times. I know I could > use expect (and will if no-one has a better suggestion). But I'm sure there > is a better way (why else would ssh-askpass exist?). > > -- > My current location - X marks the spot. > X > X > X > > -- > Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null -- Jens B. Jorgensen [EMAIL PROTECTED]