How to remove "user at host's password" from ssh login prompt?

[Chris Green]

On Tue, Sep 04, 2018 at 12:28:01PM +0100, Colin Watson wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 04, 2018 at 11:11:10AM +0100, Chris Green wrote:
> > On Tue, Sep 04, 2018 at 10:39:26AM +0100, Colin Watson wrote:
> > > On Tue, Sep 04, 2018 at 10:19:56AM +0100, Chris Green wrote:
> > > > Yes, it's not a *big* issue but I'd really prefer not to give someone
> > > > who happens to get a prompt the name of the system and the user.  One
> > > > system I use just presents "Password:" and I'd like to do the same.
> > > 
> > > I could understand this if it were something presented by the server,
> > > but it's not - the prompt is presented by the client.  It sounds like
> > > you're thinking that this is information leaked by the server, but it
> > > isn't.
> > 
> > I don't really care where it comes from and what you say doesn't
> > actually make sense to me.
> 
> Well, it matters in a non-pedantic way because if it's from the server
> then it's an information leak, while if it's from the client then it
> isn't.
> 
> > One system that I ssh into doesn't present either my name or the
> > system's host name, other systems *do* give my name and the host name.
> > These are all Linux systems and I'm logging in from the same client to
> > all of them.  So - how does one manage not to present user name and
> > host name while all the others do?
> 
> That sounds like one of those is going through some other authentication
> method while the others are going through password authentication.
> Without seeing at least a transcript of connecting to the first system,
> it's hard to tell.
> 
They're all password authenticated.


> Ideally, I'd recommend just setting up public-key authentication to
> everything you use at all regularly.  Password authentication sometimes
> makes sense as a fallback or before you've set up anything better, but
> public-key authentication is easier to use once you've set it up (since
> you won't be prompted at all) and generally safer if you trust your
> client.
> 
For many connections I do use public-key but it isn't always
appropriate.

-- 
Chris Green