FS#53677 - [x11-ssh-askpass] Does not support utf-8 chars

Attached to Project: Arch Linux
Opened by Friedrich Strohmaier (bitsfritz) - Saturday, 15 April 2017, 13:50 GMT
Last edited by Gaetan Bisson (vesath) - Tuesday, 29 August 2017, 22:17 GMT
Task Type Bug Report
Category Upstream Bugs
Status Closed
Assigned To Gaetan Bisson (vesath)
Architecture All
Severity Low
Priority Normal
Reported Version
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 1
Private No

Details

Description:
Using x11-ssh-askpass and passphrases containing utf-8 chars results in never succeeding logins/decrypting private ssh-keys without any warning.


Additional info:
* package version(s)
x11-ssh-askpass 1.2.4.1-5


Steps to reproduce:

call x11-ssh-askpass:

~$ /usr/lib/ssh/x11-ssh-askpass

- Enter some chars among them known utf-8 chars (example here abcäöß)
- Click OK
- Result:
abc���

Doing the same with i.e. lxqt-openssh-askpass does the job:
~$ /usr/bin/lxqt-openssh-askpass
abcäöß

As development of x11-ssh-askpass has terminated as far as I can see, providing it as dependency appears questionable.

More questions rising up with this. Not shure, whether they are matter of this bug/task.
This task depends upon

Closed by  Gaetan Bisson (vesath)
Tuesday, 29 August 2017, 22:17 GMT
Reason for closing:  Upstream
Comment by Gaetan Bisson (vesath) - Tuesday, 18 April 2017, 06:22 GMT
So rather than offering x11-ssh-askpass as an optional dependency to openssh that some people might find useful, you'd rather we remove it entirely because it does not work in all cases?

If I misunderstood you, please state more clearly how you are suggesting we resolve this issue.
Comment by Friedrich Strohmaier (bitsfritz) - Tuesday, 18 April 2017, 19:33 GMT
My intention was simply to show the bug exists. Never thought to be required to make a proposal how to handle this.

But well, You asked ;o)).
I'm not shure about dropping.

+ Yes a passphrase entering tool not fullfilling the requirements of the passphrase policy itself and doing wrong with no warning should be dropped.
- x11-ssh-askpass is as far as I see the only one of those tools requiring solely X-environment.
- To drop it completely would harm people not running any of qt or gtk environments.
+ On the other hand: I found x11-ssh-askpass on the wiki here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&profile=default&fulltext=Search&search=%22x11-ssh-askpass%22
Most likely people on the non english language sites will run into trouble using passphrases from their keyboards. They will get nuts, as I did.

So finally it's a question of how many users will be bitten either or other way.
What would be the arch ways solution?

Pooh! Should this be subject of a discussion on arch-general?
Comment by Gaetan Bisson (vesath) - Tuesday, 18 April 2017, 20:42 GMT
The Arch way would be to convince someone (such as you) to fork x11-ssh-askpass and implement utf8 support in it. :)

Otherwise, if this really troubles people, sure, we could drop this tool to the AUR.

(And, yes, this kind of discussion should really happen here, not on the AUR: reporting a bug is only the beginning: finding out what should be done about it is often the difficult part.)

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