how to prevent bzr+ssh from asking a password each time I commit a change?

[Ben Finney]

"Mark Hammond" <mhammond at skippinet.com.au> writes:

> > Being asked for a password or passphrase is SSH's business; if you
> > don't want to be challenged constantly you need to arrange that 
> > your public key is authorized to access the remote account and to 
> > have an `ssh-agent` running to hold the passphrase locally.
> 
> While you are obviously correct, I don't think its particularly
> uncommon for people to have https svn repositories that only support
> password authentication. When using svn directly it prompts for
> credentials and caches them, and often you don't see any auth after
> that at all - all without setting up ssh keys around the
> organization.

I don't know how the Subversion client does authentication or whether
it caches the credentials. Do remember, though, that the Bazaar client
differs from the Subversion client in that it *doesn't* require a
specific server at the other end; it leaves authentication up to the
transport layer.

> Such people are then surprised to find that bzr-svn is requesting
> the credentials so often, while svn itself hitting the exact same
> repostitory does not. The expectation is that by default it will be
> asked for once and then remembered, so it appears as though bzr-svn
> must be doing something wrong.

While it might be nice to present Subversion users with a familiar
experience, remember that this is not the purpose for which 'bzr-svn'
was conceived. Rather, the purpose is to allow a Bazaar branch to be
stored within a Subversion repository.

Interacting with existing Subversion branches is, AIUI, a secondary
feature that has many shortcomings; from what you describe, you have
found another such shortcoming.

> Note that I'm not trying to argue that is a good model to use for
> authentication, but IMO it might explain where the perceptions and
> expectations comes from (and possibly will continue to come from)

What change are you proposing should happen?

-- 
 \         “I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the |
  `\        death your right to mis-attribute this quote to Voltaire.” |
_o__)                     —Avram Grumer, rec.arts.sf.written, May 2000 |
Ben Finney