help with directing output to remote file

Jim Breton jamesb-gpg@alongtheway.com
Fri, 5 May 2000 21:52:52 +0000


I'm trying to set up some remote tape backups and I am able to do it in
cleartext, as well as by using ssh to re-direct tar's stdout to ssh and
send the data over the wire encrypted.

However, I would ideally like to be able to write the data to the tape
with encryption as well.  But I am having a problem with the output from
gpg and from ssh interfering with each other.  Here's an example:

$ tar zxvf - /etc/passwd | gpg -c | ssh jamesb@taper "cat > /dev/tape"
Enter passphrase: Executing /usr/local/bin/ssh1 for ssh1 compatibility.
jamesb@taper's password:


You can see where the two prompts, one from gpg and one from ssh,
overlap.  Is this due to gpg sending its prompt to stdout rather than
stderr, or is something else going on here?

Any hints on how I can make this work effectively?  I just need to be
able to answer the gpg prompt before ssh asks me for my password.

Thanks.  :)