Someone calles ssh-agent as my user

iiv · 06-12-2007, 07:31 AM

I have noticed in top, that ssh-agent is launched(with a key -s). It is launched as my user. SO i used ps auxf to discover the parent of a process, and there wasn't any. How this could be? It happens after every boot.

gnashley · 06-12-2007, 08:18 AM

Perhaps some vicious hacker has installed a rootkit on your system?

iiv · 06-12-2007, 08:31 AM

It was simpler. Xfce 4.4.1 startup script launches it in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.xfce
but i still can't guess for what and why isn't it killed by script itself
Are there any xfce users experiencing this strange behavior?

Crashbox · 06-12-2007, 12:19 PM

gnashley: that's not funny..as tempting as it is, we shouldn't scare the newbs

iiv: as for your question...it's a service used for authentication purposes when logging into remote machines via ssh.

read more about it here:

ssh-agent

or run the command:

Code:

man ssh-agent

hope that helps and remember 'man' and Google are your friends.

iiv · 06-13-2007, 12:03 PM

Yes, i know what ssh is. I just wonder what for does xfce needs ssh-agent.

Randux · 06-13-2007, 12:46 PM

I don't let him use it and xfce works fine. I asked a similar question a year or so ago.

gnashley · 06-13-2007, 01:30 PM

I didn't mean to scare the OP -I just couldn't think of anything else that would be (sensibly) doing this. Randux seems to confirm that this process is not needed for xfce to work so we can lay it off to xfce weirdness or some special feature that needs this service(like maybe the samba browser).

Randux · 06-13-2007, 01:47 PM

I was just as shocked as the op when I noticed it

But the guys here explained it to me and how to disable it so that's how I run xfce now.

iiv · 06-13-2007, 02:36 PM

And the next question is how to disable it? (or u may want to point the thread of forum...)
It just makes sense for me when some WM calles ssh-agent. Well, maybe tomorrow it will send my ~/.gnupg using some weird mail list at every startup....

Randux · 06-13-2007, 02:45 PM

Ok I found it http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=414919