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Comment by h2s | Hacker News Reader

The output of "man ssh_config" is popular here lately isn't it? It was on the front page in a different guise only four days ago.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4677049

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It's useful stuff.

What I'd really like to see, though, is a tutorial for using SSH keys from a thumbdrive in a way that doesn't depend on Gnome or KDE.

ssh doesnt depend on Gnome or KDE, what are you talking about?

These articles are spam. They are collections of snippets from various man pages and other older resources on the internets. If you think theyre useful, go back to the study room, youll not advance your skills by expecting "tutorials" on how to use ssh without kde(!?). Your asking the wrong questions, and will be led down a fruitless path.

Your tone is not acceptable here.

The problem isn't SSH itself, but the tutorials out there tend to assume that you're using GNOME or KDE (or, more to the point, their automount systems). If you're not running either one, you're left trying to figure out how to deal with that problem.

Plug in the flash drive, then "tail -n 20 /var/log/syslog" (on most systems, and assumes the system isn't very busy), and look for the notification of the plug-in event with the device node, e.g. /dev/sdb1.

Then, "mount /dev/sdb1 /media/flashdrive", replacing the device node with whatever you see in syslog, and the mount point with the appropriate folder on your filesystem (really, whatever you want it to be -- you can mount something to your home folder if you like). 'mount' should be able to auto-detect the filesystem on the device unless you're running a really old Linux or BSD.

Does that help?

"ssh -i /path/to/key" seems like it would do what you want, which makes me think I don't understand the problem you're trying to solve.

It might be useful, but it's trivially obtainable by anyone who needs it by googling, and irrelevant to anyone who isn't looking for it at the time.

If you're already running ssh-agent for your session, just do `ssh-add /path/to/the/key` - now it will be picked up automatically. If you want to do this automatically, it would require something waiting with inotify on the mount point, or some udev magic...

Seems the "secure your ssh" articles which contain snippets from "man ssh_config" is returning every week now on HN.

Jesus Christ people, if you need an article to use a simple tool like dont even bother.

Are you honestly saying you have never discovered something new about a simple tool by reading a tutorial or watching a colleague? If you are fully able to understand the usage and implications of every simple Unix tool based solely on the man page then you are far smarter than not only me but every person I've ever worked with.

ssh is not a simple tool, it just started out as a simple tool. And, it occupies a key role, for better or for worse, as the base layer for secure communications in a unix environment (and beyond).

Combine those two facts, and it's not surprising how many articles there are explaining the ins and outs of ssh.

I've been poring over unix man pages for about 25 years, and we all know their terseness is a delight and a frustration. ("Sharp and newline surround comments." -- takes a minute to parse.) These articles are trying to add words to address the frustration part.

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