ssh multiplexing
Does anyone use OpenSSH 3.9+'s multiplexing (the ControlMaster and ControlPath options)? How have you made it painless enough to replace ssh-agent?
It seems to me that in an ideal world, rather than having the key exchange, etc. happen once per process, I'd rather be able to indicate "open a secure connection to this host" (which wouldn't bring up a shell) and then be able to open many shells, port forwardings, and copies as I'd like over that connection without reauthenticating. But as I understand these options you need to specify one connection as a sort of master and then explicitly tell the rest to use the master connection...
It seems to me that in an ideal world, rather than having the key exchange, etc. happen once per process, I'd rather be able to indicate "open a secure connection to this host" (which wouldn't bring up a shell) and then be able to open many shells, port forwardings, and copies as I'd like over that connection without reauthenticating. But as I understand these options you need to specify one connection as a sort of master and then explicitly tell the rest to use the master connection...