Unity in Wayland prompts for keyboard focus on each run of ssh-askpass-gnome

[Luke Faraone]

When using a Wayland-based Unity session on Ubuntu 19.04:

1. Have ssh-askpass-gnome as your askpass program.
2. ssh-add -c <some path>
3. `ssh` to a host

Each time, before the ssh-askpass prompt is shown, Unity shows this dialog:

+-----------------------------------------+
| |
| ssh-askpass wants to inhibit shortcuts |
| |
| You can restore Shortcuts by pressing |
| Super+Escape. |
| |
|_________________________________________|
| Deny | Allow |
+-----------------------------------------+

This is mildly distracting, and it means that you need to hit <Enter>, answer, <Enter>, instead of just answer <Enter>.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 19.04
Package: ssh-askpass-gnome 1:7.9p1-10
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.0.0-27.28-generic 5.0.21
Uname: Linux 5.0.0-27-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.10-0ubuntu27.1
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sun Sep 8 15:04:25 2019
DistributionChannelDescriptor:
 # This is the distribution channel descriptor for the OEM CDs
 # For more information see http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DistributionChannelDescriptor
 canonical-oem-somerville-bionic-amd64-20180608-47+tunnels-mlk+X55+tunnels-mlk+X55.1
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-08-27 (12 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04 "Bionic" - Build amd64 LIVE Binary 20180608-09:38
SourcePackage: openssh
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to disco on 2019-08-31 (8 days ago)

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

Hi Luke,
thanks for the bug report and your help to make Ubuntu better.
I'm unsure what ssh could/should do differently in this case.

For similar issues there was a gnome PR [1] that went into gnome that should allow a "yes and remember" kind of use-case. Not sure if that is missing in the gnome in 19.04, just not yet released or not applying here for another case.
I added gnome/wayland tasks to the bug to get the right experts attention on this bug.

[1]: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/merge_requests/382

[Luke Faraone (lfaraone)]

Thanks for looking into this, and the pointer.

I guess, another option would be to not request shortcut inhibition, unless I'm misunderstanding its value? Unless there's a worry that some other application will be able to steal your password this way — it doesn't seem obviously warranted to me.

For example, `ssh-askpass-fullscreen` does not generate this prompt. It isn't clear to me that the fullscreen-ness of this implementation materially changes the risk profile, so either shortcut inhibition isn't useful, or I should file a bug against `ssh-askpass-fullscreen` to either request this privilege or document the gap.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

I can't say for certain if the issue resides with ssh-askpass-fullscreen or is a UI usability issue in unity, gnome, or elsewhere, however this UI is not driven by OpenSSH itself, so I'll retarget this bugtask to ssh-askpass-fullscreen as a slightly more likely candidate.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Khurshid Alam (khurshid-alam)]

Unity doesn't have wayland session. You are using gnome and it is a issue with wayland.

[Michael Stucki (mstucki)]

That's true, I'm affected by the problem while using wayland and gnome, but not using unity.

Instead of asking to fix this, I created a new bug report with fixed description. Therefore, please continue at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ssh-askpass-fullscreen/+bug/1847936.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

A few issues here:

  * Ubuntu 19.04 is no longer supported

  * "Unity in Wayland" does not exist

  * gnome-desktop is not a package that has been used since 14.04

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for ssh-askpass-fullscreen (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]