What is this password interface?

Help
1

Hi.

This started showing on my KDE Neon installation.

Is this some type o virus?

virus
virus1182×723 80 KB

Or is something that came with update?

Should I be worried?

It never opened this before.

I was just trying to use ssh to connect to a server.

Operating System: KDE neon User Edition
KDE Plasma Version: 6.4.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.17.0
Qt Version: 6.9.2
Kernel Version: 6.14.0-29-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
2

It’s ksshaskpass, which was added to the OS, as some other distros like Kubuntu do. It saves the credentials to your wallet.

1 Like
3

As @claydoh pointed out this is ksshaskpass

It is called by ssh-add when it needs a key but is not invoked from an interactive shell.

In this case ssh-addchecks if the SSH_ASKPASS` environment variable is set and if that is the case, executes the program it points to.

On Neon this variable is set by /etc/xdg/plasma-workspace/env/neon_ksshaskpass.sh

1 Like
4

Ok, Thanks.

Considering that everyday we have a new way to be hacked I think that things like this that involves password/security should have a warning like those OS popup saying that it’s a new feature.

Considering that I use npm and there was some compromised packages, I almost nuked my entire OS.

Thanks for the reply.

5

Hi,

What is the best way (recommanded by the Neon Teams) to disable propely this feature and come back to the old system ?

I tried to uninstall the package but i cannot connect anymore to my different servers.

I tried also
unset SSH_ASKPASS
but no success…

Thank for your help.

6

Try unset SSH_ASKPASS_REQUIRE, and if that works, add it to your ~/.bashrc

7

Thanks for your help, i tried with sucess to comment the 2 lines in the file

/etc/xdg/plasma-workspace/env/neon_ksshaskpass.sh

So it looks like this and there is no pop-up anymore.

#!/bin/sh
# SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0-only OR LicenseRef-KDE-Accepted-GPL
# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2025 Carlos De Maine <``carlosd.kde@gmail.com``>
# export SSH_ASKPASS to be ksshaskpass

#export SSH_ASKPASS='/usr/bin/ksshaskpass'
#export SSH_ASKPASS_REQUIRE='prefer'

ssh-add < /dev/null

Back to old school. :slight_smile: