Tag Archives: ssh

Disable graphical prompt for ssh passphrase

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When I open a ssh session in the terminal, it asks for my passphrase in a graphical prompt window. That would be ok in theory. But I don’t know my passphrase. So I need to copy it from my password manager. And unfortunately the stupid window doesn’t allow me to access anything else. So, I wanted to disable it.

The usual way is with the environment variable SSH_ASKPASS. To disable the graphical prompt, just remove the value of this variable:

unset SSH_ASKPASS

Unfortunately, in my case this did not work and I needed to remove also another variable:

unset SSH_AUTH_SOCK

Access a server with an SSH key

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Install ssh on the server:

apt-get install openssh-server

Generate a key pair (files id_rsa and id_rsa.pub) with a passphrase:

ssh-keygen

Edit the ssh configuration file:

vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

In the file, make the following settings:

   PasswordAuthentication no
   PermitRootLogin without-password
   RSAAuthentication yes
   PubkeyAuthentication yes

Add the public key as an authorized key for root that can be used for login:

cat id_rsa.pub >> /root/.ssh/authorized_keys

That’s all for the server!

Now for the client. Copy the key pair into the folder ~/.ssh. Now you should be able to connect with:

ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa root@server

sshfs – mount files over ssh

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Mount a file system on a different computer via ssh:

sshfs -o follow_symlinks user@server:/home/user/ /path/to/mount/point

server is the other computer, user is your username on the other computer and /home/user/ is the folder you want to include from the other computer. /path/to/mount/point is the place on your drive where the files will be located. It needs to be a folder that exists and is empty.

To get rid of the mounted folder again use

umount /path/to/mount/point

Executing a command on a remote server

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This is probably a very old hat for Linux-savy people. You can use ssh to execute commands on a remote server, just pass them on as an additional argument:

ssh me@my.server.de "cd bla ; ls ; python test.py "

I use double quotes (“) istead of single quotes (‘) to interpret variables. Different commands are separated with semicolon (;). You can use any command you like, but for some reason when I call some GUI I don’t get the output on the command line until the window is closed.

Open SSH folder in Dolphin using a SSH-key

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Dolphin allows you to connect to folders on other machines per SSH, but there is no option to specify a key file. But you can add the key to your general SSH configuration (with the added benefit that you also won’t have to specify the keyfile anywhere else, no more -i on the command line!). This is how it works:

  1. Locate your private key file, say it’s ~/.ssh/myidentity_rsa.
  2. Open or create the file ~/.ssh/config and add the lines 
    Host myhost.net
  HostName myhost.net
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/myidentity_rsa
  3. Type fish://user@myhost.net/path/to/folder/ into the location bar.
  4. Now it should ask for the passphrase to your key.

Done!