Re: [PLUG] Pros and cons of key-pair based vs password based SSH...

["Paul L. Snyder" <plsnyder@drexel.edu>]

On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, zuzu wrote:

> The nice thing about key-based ssh logins is remote tab-completion.
> (e.g. tab-completing an scp command)

Actually, it's possible to get remote tab completion using password-based
authentication (without, in fact, typing your password every time) if you
enable the 'ControlMaster' option in your ssh_config.  This sets ssh up to
use connection multiplexing.

Thus, open an ssh session to the remote host, and as long as at least one
session remains open you won't have to authenticate other sessions to the
same host (including the transient ones for completion).  Also, this makes
opening multiple connections faster, too, as the subsequent ones don't have
to reauthenticate (making this good for pubkey auth, as well).

One thing to note is that if the ssh session doesn't shut down cleanly you
might have to wipe the contents of your ControlPath directory before
multiplexing will work again.

Paul
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