Recent changes to bugs

#33 Typo in default password prompt indicator ("assword")

Shachar Shemesh — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 15:48:02 -0000

Hello Yan, and thank you for your approach.
This is, in fact, done on purpose. Some implementations use a lowercase "p" and others capital. By having the search pattern not include the first letter of the word, this matches both cases.

Typo in default password prompt indicator ("assword")

Yan Yuhao — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 14:20:48 -0000

Description

When running sshpass -V, the output shows an incorrect default password prompt indicator:

Using "assword" as the default password prompt indicator.

The expected value should be "password".

This appears to be a typo in configure.ac where the default PASSWORD_PROMPT is defined as "assword".

Steps to reproduce

sshpass -V

Output:

Using "assword" as the default password prompt indicator.

Expected behavior

The output should be:

Using "password" as the default password prompt indicator.

Proposed fix

The typo can be corrected in configure.ac by changing the default value of PASSWORD_PROMPT.

Patch:

diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 52ab2a1..d276aa7 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ AC_CHECK_FUNCS([select posix_openpt strdup])
 AC_ARG_ENABLE([password-prompt],
         [AS_HELP_STRING([--enable-password-prompt=prompt], [Provide alternative ssh password prompt to look for.])],
         [AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED([PASSWORD_PROMPT], ["$enable_password_prompt"], [Password prompt to use])],

-        [AC_DEFINE([PASSWORD_PROMPT], ["assword"])])
+        [AC_DEFINE([PASSWORD_PROMPT], ["password"])])

 AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile])
 AM_CONFIG_HEADER(config.h)

Environment

sshpass -V

Output:

Using "assword" as the default password prompt indicator.

ControlMaster / ProxyJump

bitozoid — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 19:34:18 -0000

Let's say I have four hosts:

M: my local machine,
P: a proxy machine (logged in via PubkeyAuthentication),
D: a remote machine that I have direct access to,
H: a remote machine that I do not have direct access to, but I can reach through P (somehow hidden).

If I ssh from M to D using 'ControlMaster auto', once I close the shell connection the mux connection is kept open for future connections. That is, two processes are running in M:

an ssh interactive process, and
another independent ssh master process named '[mux]'

but the former is killed once I close the shell, and the latter is the one kept open for future connections.

If I sshpass from M to D using 'ControlMaster auto', I get three processes:

an sshpass process, parent of
an ssh interactive process, child of the sshpass process,
an independent ssh master process named '[mux]',

and only the mux process survives after the shell is closed, so it can be reused.

If I ssh from M to H using 'ControlMaster auto' and P as the ProxyJump host, then I get four processes:

an ssh interactive process to H, parent of
an ssh interactive process to P,
an independent ssh master process name '[mux]' to P
an independent ssh master process name '[mux]' to H

and again, the first one is killed once I close the shell but the other three are kept running. So that, I can reuse the socket for later usage.

However, if I sshpass from M to H using 'ControlMaster auto' and P as the ProxyJump host, then I also get five processes:

an sshpass process, parent of
an ssh interactive process to H, parent of
an ssh interactive process to P, grandchild of the sshpass process,
a ssh master process name '[mux]' to P
a ssh master process name '[mux]' to H

BUT then when I close the remote shell, everyone dies but the mux process to P, and the socket that connects to H disappear. So that, I cannot reuse the previous connection.

This looks like an sshpass bug to me, since ssh seems to work fine when used without sshpass.

A simplified config in this case would be:

Host H
  PubkeyAuthentication no
  Proxyjump P
Host D
  PubkeyAuthentication no
Match host !localhost,*
  ControlMaster auto
  ControlPath ~/.ssh/sockets/test-%h
  ControlPersist 30m

#28 Hide password on "ps aux| grep {process name}"

Shachar Shemesh — Fri, 31 May 2024 18:46:53 -0000

status: open --> invalid

#23 Show STDOUT of scp

Shachar Shemesh — Fri, 31 May 2024 10:31:21 -0000

I'm not sure this is worth fixing.
The setup here is this: scp is checking whether it's "foreground" (and thus print the progress) by checking which is the process leader of STDOUT.
When running under sshpass, STDOUT is directed to the parent's STDOUT (typically, the controlling terminal of where sshpass was run). But this is not the controlling terminal for scp itself. This is the PTY that sshpass created to accept the password prompt. This causes the IOCTL to fail, and scp to conclude it is running non-interactively, and not produce the progress output.

A fix would be directing STDOUT and STDERR to the same TTY. This would require sshpass to stick around and continue forwarding output and input from its own streams to the running program.

Feel free to submit such a patch, but this is outside sshpass' intended use.

#23 Show STDOUT of scp

Shachar Shemesh — Fri, 31 May 2024 09:58:16 -0000

The immediate cause for scp is an ioctl it does that fails with ENOTTY:
ioctl(1, TIOCGPGRP, 0x7ffc18af0484) = -1 ENOTTY (Inappropriate ioctl for device)

Still investigating why.

#31 [feature request] sshpass should ask for password using the interactive password prompt

Shachar Shemesh — Wed, 22 May 2024 06:26:14 -0000

status: open --> wont-fix

#31 [feature request] sshpass should ask for password using the interactive password prompt

Shachar Shemesh — Wed, 22 May 2024 05:35:56 -0000

Each run of sshpass only provides the password to one ssh instance. If sshpass asks for the password, then it will ask for the password 100 times.

What you need is a standalone program that asks for the password in a secure way, and then transfers it to sshpass on all 100 instances. This should by no means be part of sshpass itself.

A quick search showed https://github.com/r-lib/askpass. See if it's any help to you.

#31 [feature request] sshpass should ask for password using the interactive password prompt

Yuri — Wed, 22 May 2024 05:31:01 -0000

The same program should be run on 100 machines.
Users can't type ssh password 100 times.
sshpass and pssh combination allow to type the password only once.
However, the process of typing password is not as good what ssh itself provides.

#31 [feature request] sshpass should ask for password using the interactive password prompt

Shachar Shemesh — Wed, 22 May 2024 05:26:57 -0000

I fail to see how that is different than just running ssh and letting it ask for the password.