[NFBCS] Questions about ssh-agent and ssh-ad

[Brian Buhrow]

	hello.  To help make this problem easieR, I've received a number of
suggestions from various folks, including Jim, my boss and folks on this
list.  Here's what I've come up with.

For private keys like I'm talking about, it's a very bad idea to store them
in persistent storage without a pass  phrase because they are keys to the
kingdom, so to speak in that they allow access to most of my employer's
environment.  So, no pass phrase is not an option.

That said, I've taken a number of steps to ease the pain of adding keys to
the ssh-agent.

1.  I've written a script which runs at login time which sets the
environment variables required to connect my current session to the running
ssh-agent.    And, if the agent isn't running, it starts a new one.

2.  I've learned that it is possible to change the pass phrase on a private
key, so I can change the phrase of the keys I have to something easier to
remember/type.

3.  If I use the same pass phrase for a number of keys, I can load a bunch
of keys into the agent at once and only have to type my pass phrase once.  

	With these steps, I can probably reduce the number of times I have to
type the pass phrase down to just a few per year.

Thank you everyone for the help and ideas.
Hopefully this summary of the steps I've taken to solve this problem will
help Someone else as well.

-Bria