cygwin/xwin multiple logon scripts

[Harold L Hunt II]

Don,

Don V Black wrote:

> Hi -
> 
> I have cygwin on W2K Pro from which I launch xwin.exe
> I use xwin to monitor 3 Linux servers.

Fair enough.

>  I use the ALT-Fn
> feature of xwin to open a separate virtual xwin session
> (what is that called ... a panel? a window? an instance?)
> for each server.

I am not sure what Alt-Fn functionality you are referring to... it isn't 
a part of XWin.exe as far as I know.  Are you using some sort of virtual 
desktop manager or are you using Alt-Tab to switch between multiple 
instances of XWin.exe?  Are you starting multiple instances of XWin.exe 
with different display numbers (e.g. 'XWin :0', 'XWin :1', etc) or are 
you talking about something else?

> I then open multiple telnet sessions
> form each xwin ALT-Fn instance.  I must relogon to each
> of these servers from the multiple telnet sessions every
> time W2K is reboot. Of course, this is often.

I suggest instead that you use ssh, which is documented in a few 
sentences here:

http://x.cygwin.com/docs/ug/using-remote-apps.html

> My question is "How do I set up a script to perform this
> multiple logon to multiple servers from xwin under cygwin?"
> My W2K client system is on a LAN behind a firewall.

ssh has two faclities that can help you do this:

1) ssh keys - Setup ssh keys, put the private key on your W2K Pro box 
that you run Cygwin/X on, then copy the text of the public key file to 
the "authorized keys" file on each of the remote hosts.  You can then 
set the password on your private key to blank, which will supress 
prompting for the password, with the caveat that anyone that gets ahold 
of your private key file can easily impersonate you.  Search through the 
OpenSSH docs for more detailed information since ssh keys are not 
specific to Cygwin/X but are instead shared by any platform that 
supports ssh.

2) ssh-agent - This is a utility included with OpenSSH that remembers 
passwords for keys that you have added to it with "ssh-add".  The idea 
is to run ssh-agent, export the variables that it spits back at you in 
any shell that you want it to work in, then use ssh-add to cache the 
passwords for your keys.  Upon connecting to your remote machines you 
will not be prompted for your password; ssh-agent will provide it for 
you.  Again, this is documented in generic OpenSSH documentation so 
please look there for further information.

I think you can get a pretty nice setup with ssh.  Let us know how it 
works out.

Harold