# Applying style to ssh-askpass


<img src="/images/openssh.png" alt="OpenSSH" width="100px" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;" />

[ssh-askpass(1)](https://man.openbsd.org/ssh-askpass.1) is a graphical program
that prompts the user for their SSH Key passphrase and passes it to the
[ssh-add(1)](https://man.openbsd.org/ssh-add) command.

Out of the box, ssh-askpass is pretty ugly, but I've managed to
make it look dark, modern, and good.

# A screenshot
This is how my ssh-askpass window looks:

{{< figure src="/images/ssh-askpass.png" alt="ssh-askpass" >}}

# The code

```
SshAskpass*Dialog.font:       -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
SshAskpass*Dialog.label:      Please enter your authentication passphrase:
SshAskpass*Dialog.title:
SshAskpass*background:        #000000
SshAskpass*foreground:        #cccccc
SshAskpass.Button*background: #000000
SshAskpass.Button*foreground: #cccccc
```

The above code goes in your ${HOME}/.Xresources file.

On Arch Linux, make sure you have the xorg-xrdb package installed.

I have a line in my ${HOME}/.xprofile that reads:
```
[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb -merge -I$HOME $HOME/.Xresources
```

Stuff like this isn't super important, but when you're typing your SSH
key passphrase 20 times a day, it's nice when you like the look of the dialog
box.