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eyolf

Member

From: Copenhagen

Registered: 2005-11-29

Posts: 339

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.desktop file for running scripts that need authentication

I have a question which comes out of a specific situation, but which is probably more general in scope:

I finally convinced my wife that it would be a GoodThing for her to switch to linux on her laptop (which, given her old 256Mb RAM and all, means LXDE, which works great). I've made her some .desktop files for common non-trivial tasks, but this one eludes me:
We have a common file server, which is mounted through fstab and nfs when the laptop is stationary, but when she's on the road, she'll need a script to connect through sshfs. Ssh is set up with passphrase authentication only. So, the seqluence I need is (I imagine):
1. desktop file to launch ...
2. ... script to run ssh <server>, ...
3. ... which somehow should provide a dialog to enter the passphrase.
4. When authentication is done, all traces of the communication should vanish; no xterms should be left on the screen.

What's the best way to accomplish this? I've tried with various combinations of "xterm -e ssh ...", but with no luck so far (which is the 'general scope' of the problem: how to get quotes and -e parameters right in launch scripts). Are there any bash gurus out there? Or is there an even better way? xdialog?