>       I'm wondering if anyone would know a technique setting up an
> ssh-agent via cron or at bootup to allow passphrases to be used.
> 
>       We are looking for an automatic process for setting up an
> ssh-agent on a non-login account that would securely seed the agent with
> a non-null passphrase.

Can I ask why you're using ssh-agent?  And what you mean by "securely"
in the above sentence?

If the key's unencrypted passphrase is on the machine (to hand to
ssh-agent), then it seems exactly as secure as having a key with an
empty passphrase.  So why not use an empty passphrase key in the first
place?

If the reason for using ssh-agent isn't related to the security of the
key, then you should be able to use 'expect' or something similar to
launch and load ssh-agent.  

You want the machine to have some information.  That information has to
be on the machine (in hardware or data), directly requestable by the
machine (network), or given to the machine (keyboard, sent
automatically).

All of those methods seem to allow someone that has access to the
machine to access the information.  So unless you have specific threats
or threat avenues that you're worried about, none is necessarily more
secure than another.


-- 
Darren Dunham                                           [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Senior Technical Consultant         TAOS            http://www.taos.com/
Got some Dr Pepper?                           San Francisco, CA bay area
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