I am going to preface this email by saying that I know very little about OpenSSH internals, the protocol, etc. I do a lot of work with novice programmers, and one step that comes up relatively early is generating SSH keys. In case you haven't done it in a while, the output looks like this: $ ssh-keygen -t rsa Generating public/private rsa key pair. Enter file in which to save the key (/Users/aidan/.ssh/id_rsa): Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): When that last step comes up, I am regularly asked, "Does it mean the system password, or a new one?" A slight tweak of the language could easily eliminate that confusion... something like "Enter passphrase for the new key" or "Enter new passphrase". I would happily submit the patch myself if it wouldn't take a few hours for me to figure out how to do so :-) Thanks!
On 2 September 2014 15:52, Aidan Feldman <aidan.feldman at gmail.com> wrote:> I am going to preface this email by saying that I know very little > about OpenSSH internals, the protocol, etc. > > I do a lot of work with novice programmers, and one step that comes up > relatively early is generating SSH keys. In case you haven't done it > in a while, the output looks like this: > > $ ssh-keygen -t rsa > Generating public/private rsa key pair. > Enter file in which to save the key (/Users/aidan/.ssh/id_rsa): > Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): > > When that last step comes up, I am regularly asked, "Does it mean the > system password, or a new one?" A slight tweak of the language could > easily eliminate that confusion... something like "Enter passphrase > for the new key" or "Enter new passphrase".Perhaps "Enter new passphrase to encrypt the key (empty for no encryption):" This makes it clear that it needs to be a new phrase, and what it will be used for. -- Eitan Adler
On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 6:52 PM, Aidan Feldman <aidan.feldman at gmail.com> wrote:> I am going to preface this email by saying that I know very little > about OpenSSH internals, the protocol, etc. > > I do a lot of work with novice programmers, and one step that comes up > relatively early is generating SSH keys. In case you haven't done it > in a while, the output looks like this: > > $ ssh-keygen -t rsa > Generating public/private rsa key pair. > Enter file in which to save the key (/Users/aidan/.ssh/id_rsa): > Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): > > When that last step comes up, I am regularly asked, "Does it mean the > system password, or a new one?" A slight tweak of the language could > easily eliminate that confusion... something like "Enter passphrase > for the new key" or "Enter new passphrase". > > I would happily submit the patch myself if it wouldn't take a few > hours for me to figure out how to do so :-) Thanks!What a *sensible* person! Kudos to you for catching just the sort of thing that irritates or confuses people, especially new users. I'd suggest "Enter passphrase for key (empty for no passphrase)"