putty pageant - forget keys after period of inactivity

Posted by pQd on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by pQd
Published on 2013-06-25T10:02:04Z Indexed on 2013/06/25 10:22 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 296

Filed under:

putty

|

ssh-agent

in the environment where windows client computers are used to run putty to connect to multiple linux servers i'm considering moving away from password based authentication and using public/private key pairs with pass-phrases.

using ssh-agent would be nice, but at the same time i'd like it to 'forget' the pass-phrases after given period of inactivity.

it seems that putty's pageant does not provide such feature; what would you suggest as alternative? solutions that i'm considering:

patching pageant code [might be tricky, code is probably quite rusty and project - sadly - stagnant]
writing small custom application using GetLastInputInfo and killing pageant if the machine was idle for more than let's say 15 minutes [ yes, there'll be separate policy for locking the desktops as well ]
using alternative ssh client and ssh agent. any suggestions?

thanks!

© Server Fault or respective owner

Related posts about putty

"Stream" tar action from remote server through Putty?

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I am accessing a shared hosting account through Putty / SSH. The account is pretty full, 300 MB below its quota. I need to make a full backup of all data present on the account. Creating a bzip2 file using tar cjf archive.tar.bz2 directory/* fails because there is not enough space for the tar… >>> More
Basic proxy with OpenSSH, Cygwin, Putty

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I know this is probably a common question, but after looking around for a few hours (on this site and others), I can't find a solution. I'm trying to set up a simple proxy. I already have a server running Windows Server 2008. I've installed Cygwin and have OpenSSH installed. I also have sshd (the… >>> More
delete key prints "~" in putty

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Hi, i am SSHing to a RHEL-3 box using Putty. Backspace works correctly, but when I press the "Delete" key the deletion does not happen. Instead, it prints "~" on the screen. Thanks in advance, Ajay >>> More
created pub/priv keys using putty, created .ssh folder and authorized_keys, still not working

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
created public/private keys using puttygen on my computer. put the public key in the .ssh/authorized_keys folder on the server setup pageant.exe to use the pk on my computer. when I run pageant, and connecting using putty it still asks me for my password. what am I missing? I did do a: chmod 700… >>> More
SSH Client - What are some alternatives to Putty that use tabs?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I've been using Putty for years now and it seems kind of dated. What are some good alternatives to Putty that use tabs to manage console sessions (managing individual putty windows is a messy pita). Edit: I've found the holy grail of SSH clients on SO, the PuTTY Connection Manager. Its the same old… >>> More

Related posts about ssh-agent

How to enable key forwarding with ssh-agent?

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I've used the ssh-agent from oh-my-zsh to manage my SSH key. So far, so good, i only have to type the passphrase for my private key once when I start my shell and public key authentication works great. The problem is however that key forwarding doesn't work. There are 2 servers A & B which I… >>> More
ssh-agent key timeout with screen or tmux on bastion host

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Normally I have ssh-agent running, I ssh to my bastion host then open a tmux session and connect to other boxes through that. Key forwarding works for any sessions that I open from that point forward. If I resume my tmux session after closing terminal, sleeping my laptop, whatever, my key forwarding… >>> More
Choose identity from ssh-agent by file name

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Problem: I have some 20-30 ssh-agent identities. Most servers refuse authentication with Too many failed authentications, as SSH usually won't let me try 20 different keys to log in. At the moment, I am specifying the identity file for every host manually, using the IdentityFile and the IdentitiesOnly… >>> More
Sharing the same `ssh-agent` among multiple login sessions

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Is there a convenient way to ensure that all logins from a given user (ie me) use the same ssh-agent? I hacked out a script to make this work most of the time, but I suspected all along that there was some way to do it that I had just missed. Additionally, since that time there have been amazing… >>> More
ssh-agent on ubuntu rapidly restarts

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I am attempting to use ssh-agent on Ubuntu 13.10 so that I will not have to enter my passphrase to unlock a key every time I want to use ssh or git. As you can see below, ssh-agent appears to be restarting for some reason. These commends were executed within a period of less than 5 seconds: andrew@zaphod:~$… >>> More