[gnome-love] Gnome SSH agent applet

[Ross Golder <ross golder org>]

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but if I have, here it is
again for the newbies...

What we need, for those of you who work with SSH on a regular basis, is
a panel applet that does pretty much the same as the command-line
'ssh-agent' program, but as a GUI applet.

I would envisage taking a simple applet from gnome-applets, and the
ssh-agent source code, and kind of mixing the two (probably wise to
check licenses first too).

Nice features it could/would have might be:

- It would start and stop with the user's session, optionally prompting
for the passphrase at the start of the session (or just the first time
it's asked it's requested, and remember it). No need to fire up a
terminal (or Alt+F2) and 'ssh-agent', or set up other command-line based
workarounds!

- A right-hand click menu, with a preferences dialog, and maybe a 'state
information'-type dialog saying what keys it knows etc.

- Eventually, maybe some kind of basic timeout, or coupling with the
screensaver, so if the screensaver cuts in, or they haven't used the
passphrase for a certain amount of time, it would discard cached
passphrases.

Etc etc. I'm sure you get the idea. If anyone's after a pet project,
this'd be a good one, and I fancy it's chances of becoming one of the
core GNOME desktop applets. If nobody else beats me to it, I'll try to
do it myself, but until then other commitments call.

Regards,

--
Ross