On 2 September 2014 17:00, mancha <mancha1@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Tue, Sep 02, 2014 at 04:11:52PM -0700, Eitan Adler wrote: >> On 2 September 2014 15:52, Aidan Feldman <aidan.feldman@xxxxxxxxx> >> wrote: >> > I am going to preface this email by saying that I know very little >> > about OpenSSH internals, the protocol, etc. >> > >> > I do a lot of work with novice programmers, and one step that comes >> > up relatively early is generating SSH keys. In case you haven't >> > done it in a while, the output looks like this: >> > >> > $ ssh-keygen -t rsa Generating public/private rsa key pair. Enter >> > file in which to save the key (/Users/aidan/.ssh/id_rsa): Enter >> > passphrase (empty for no passphrase): >> > >> > When that last step comes up, I am regularly asked, "Does it mean >> > the system password, or a new one?" A slight tweak of the language >> > could easily eliminate that confusion... something like "Enter >> > passphrase for the new key" or "Enter new passphrase". >> >> Perhaps "Enter new passphrase to encrypt the key (empty for no >> encryption):" >> >> This makes it clear that it needs to be a new phrase, and what it will >> be used for. > > You might also consider helping your users get into the good habit of > reading documentation. Agreed. > Not all software suites have good docs but OpenSSH does a pretty job of > it. Helpful, but short prompts within the working software are not unreasonable. Does making the prompt more clear have any real negative value? -- Eitan Adler _______________________________________________ openssh-unix-dev mailing list openssh-unix-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.mindrot.org/mailman/listinfo/openssh-unix-dev
