ssh-agent is used for managing lots of identifies to authentication users against multiple computers. It seems sensible, from an ease of use point of view, for su to become integrated with ssh-agent. Example: # give ssh-agent access to my private key ssh-add Password: (once) # Authenticate against remote server ssh user@remotebox1 # Authenticate against remote server 2 ssh user2@remotebox2 # Change to root su Password: (every time) It would be good if I could give su a list of trusted ssh keys.
This can be done outside su by using a PAM module.