openssh unix dev - Jul 2003 - ssh-askpass keyboard grab problems

We're developing a security application (http://iscs.sourceforge.net)
that uses SSH for out-of-band management.  Sometimes we want to use rsa
keys and other times we want to use user ids and passwords.  We noticed
that there was not an OpenSSH API that we could use to pass the user's
password and that we could not give it via stdin.  We did notice that we
could set SSH_ASKPASS and launch gnome-ssh-askpass or ssh-askpass (or I
suppose anything else).
	We tried this and were quite pleased with the result in that it allows
us to get on with the rest of the code and not worry about this for
now.  However, every time we launch the application and it requests the
ssh password via either ssh-askpass or gnome-ssh-askpass or
x11-ssh-askpass, we receive errors about "could not grab keyboard" and
hints that there might be malice afoot.
	What is causing this error and how to we go about eliminating it?
Thanks - John Sullivan
-- 
John A. Sullivan III
Chief Technology Officer
Nexus Management
+1 207-985-7880
john.sullivan at nexusmgmt.com
---
If you are interested in helping to develop a GPL enterprise class
VPN/Firewall/Security device management console, please visit
http://iscs.sourceforge.net

Circa 2003-07-21 21:20:19 -0400 dixit John A. Sullivan III:

: [...] We did notice that we could set SSH_ASKPASS and launch
: gnome-ssh-askpass or ssh-askpass (or I suppose anything else).
: 
: We tried this and were quite pleased with the result in that it
: allows us to get on with the rest of the code and not worry about
: this for now.  However, every time we launch the application and it
: requests the ssh password via either ssh-askpass or
: gnome-ssh-askpass or x11-ssh-askpass, we receive errors about "could
: not grab keyboard" and hints that there might be malice afoot.
: 
: What is causing this error and how to we go about eliminating it?

Does your application (or some other running application) grab the
keyboard---for example, by using XGrabKeyboard()?  What version of
x11-ssh-askpass are you using?  Could you send the exact text of the
error message(s) to the mailing list, please?

-- 
jim knoble  |  jmknoble at pobox.com  |  http://www.pobox.com/~jmknoble/
(GnuPG fingerprint: 31C4:8AAC:F24E:A70C:4000::BBF4:289F:EAA8:1381:1491)
"We have guided missiles and misguided men." --Martin Luther King, Jr.
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