in the environment where windows client computers are used to run putty to connect to multiple linux servers i'm considering moving away from password based authentication and using public/private key pairs with pass-phrases.
using ssh-agent would be nice, but at the same time i'd like it to 'forget' the pass-phrases after given period of inactivity.
it seems that putty's pageant does not provide such feature; what would you suggest as alternative? solutions that i'm considering:
- patching pageant code [might be tricky, code is probably quite rusty and project - sadly - stagnant]
- writing small custom application using GetLastInputInfo and killing pageant if the machine was idle for more than let's say 15 minutes [ yes, there'll be separate policy for locking the desktops as well ]
- using alternative ssh client and ssh agent. any suggestions?
thanks!
we ended up patching the pageant source code. if anyone is interested - https://github.com/szuras/Putty-With-Closing-Pagent-When-Idle