what is ssh-sgent?

[Chris G]

On Sat, May 03, 2008 at 09:59:06PM +0100, John K Masters wrote:
> On 21:29 Sat 03 May     , andy baxter wrote:
> > andy baxter wrote:
> > > John K Masters wrote:
> > >   
> > >> On 20:50 Sat 03 May     , andy baxter wrote:
> > >>   
> > >>     
> > >   
> > P.S. I don't have any concrete reason to think my machine has been got 
> > at - I was just poking around my system and found that ssh-agent has a 
> > socket in /tmp.
> > 
> Should be fine. As I said ssh-agent gets installed when you install ssh.
> However, if you are not using a service whether ssh or whatever then it
> is probably best to turn it off.
> 
You probably can't turn it off, not in any sort of proper
configuration driven way anyway.  I wanted to turn it off on my system
and it appears to be hard coded into the xdm/gdm/kdm startup scripts.
ssh-agent will be started if it exists, you'd have to edit the scripts
to stop it.

For my situation ssh-agent is pointless, my desktop stays up all day
(both at home and at work) so once a password is entered into
ssh-agent anyone walking up to my machine can use the remote ssh logins.
Hence I just set up for passwordless login (i.e. public key) and
ignore ssh-agent, all ssh-agent does is add more hassle.

-- 
Chris Green