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Pageant Integration

It would be nice to have Pageant integrated into Royal TS.


Currently we use pre-shared key for authenticating against switches at login. I am able to add this pre-shared key to my connection in the software however I am not able to get the application to auto-load this key/file into Pageant (or equivalent application).

This means in order for me to connect to each switch I first manually load this file, then initate the connection from within Royal TS. 


Not sure if this is the correct locaiton for this feature request, but is anyone else having the same issue or is this something that they would find useful.


Hi Joe!


This is the right place for feature request.


I'm not quite sure how your workflow is and I'm not really familiar with Pageant. Can you provide more details what you think Royal TS should do to make your workflow better?


Hi,


Basically Pageant holds a Private key which we use to authenticate with when connecting to switches. 


Our process is: find shared private file, load into Pageant (or equivalent), open putty and connect to switch. The switch then sees the private key is loaded, using it to log into the switch itself.


What would be nice in the software is if we were able to load the file and pre-share key, enter the password in your app and then when we launch the terminal it puts the file into Pageant and enters the password set.


You can load a file using the command "C:\Putty\pageant.exe C:\PrivateKey_Location


Im not being rude or anything and i don't mean to drop names however currently Remote Desktop Manager Enterprise edition has its own version of Pageant and does the above into it.However i prefer your product for everything else.


Let me know if more detail is needed.


Thanks,

I'm sorry but I'm still not sure about the workflow. Maybe I'm missing something. If you configure your private keys and connections in Royal TS, you simply get logged in to your session within Royal TS. As far as I understand you want Royal T to dump all private key files into one directory and then start pageant.exe with that location? Or do you want that Royal TS itself exposes all credentials (private key files) the same way as pageant.exe does?


I'm sorry but since I'm not really familiar with pageant I have a hard time understanding the general workflow.

Hi,


Ill try to get a video of what i mean when im in the office next.


Basically, i want to be able to load the file specified in Royal TS under the "Private Key" setting into Pageant.exe or equivalent application. The key is password protected, so when prompted i would like the RTS to enter the password so the key is loaded and active.


Once this is done this will allow me to automatically connect to the switch without details. (As it sees the key is active and uses it to authenticate).


As mentioned Remote Desktop Manager, loads this into an internal application of its own (it appears to just be a fully loaded Paegant.exe that it has rebadged and integrated).


Workflow would be:

-  Create new Terminal Connection

-  Add Private Key file and password for file

- Tick box to auto load file on launch

- Launch connection into terminal

- File is loaded into Paegant or equivalent app, and password enter automatically

- Connection to switch/firewll etc established

(if file loaded successfully switch will see this and allow connection. This part is on the switch and not apart of Royal TS)


Ill try to do the video over the next few days

Hi Further to this.


I have successfully created a task in Royal TS and when double clicked it does prompt for password and loads key when entered:

image

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However if i add the task to be executed on connection i get the below error:

image



My setup in the terminal is as follows:

image

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Im not sure why right-click on task and execute is working but triggering from terminal connection is not.


Ideally it would be nice to get Royal IT to enter the password too however i think this would need to be an integrated application in order for that to occur as paegant doesn't have a command to pass the password.


Hope this helps clear up what i was trying to achieve from my request above.


thanks,

I see that you haven't enabled the option "Wait for connect task completion". If you check that, would it work then?

Hi Again,


So I have managed to get it to work to a point. I still need to manually enter a password in but i can get the file to load each time.


Basically instead of trying to get Royal TS to load the application, i simply use a "Task" to run the file, which Windows opens with its default application (being pageant).


Setup is as follows:

Command Task created and Named:


image


For the "Command" I point it to the $PrivateKeyPath$ specified in the terminal session. (this is determined by the application in its nested Folder.See below for folder structure)

image

image


Again, in the terminal session i specify the Private Key path:

image


And then Specify the Task created above to Run:

image


Running the Terminal, then  loads the key into Pageant which prompts for password:



image


Wish list would be to use the password specified in the application to also be passed but i think this is a limitation of Pageant when its not "integrated".


Hope this helps anyone else trying to achieve this same setup.

Thanks for the information. I will take a look and see what we can do here.

I wanted to check on a status of this. I cannot connect to machine with SSH using just a username and a putty key. I'm coming from Mobaxterm which has support for putty keys and I am not finding this transition very smooth. I really like the interface and options but to add a new SSH connection with a key I have approximately 8-10 menu windows to check through.



Hi Derek,


You can achieve this now by using "External Application". Point it to Paegant.exe and even under tasks set the password and it automatically loads the app and inserts the password with only "OK" needing to be clicked.


See attached image of how i got it working. Closing connection also closes paegant so its a win win.

 I'm hoping this has been solved somewhere else. I am unable to locate "External Application", but that still requires additiona steps to complete a connection it would appear.


Let say I have 100 accounts. I have 100 ssh keys, all password protected. I can store the key and its password. I'm not sure what the point in storing the password is as its not used to unlock the private key in order to use the key to establish the connection.


For each connection I have to manually load the key into an ssh agent (pageant, ssh-agent, etc.), retrieve the password and apply to unlock the key, all before using the ssh connection in TSX. TSX should determine if the key  associated with the connection is loaded into an agent. If not, load the key using the stored key and password, then complete the connection request.


The whole goal in storing encrypted connection information is to simplify connection management. Without this functionality, I have to constantly search for passwords and manually add keys to an agent to use the products ssh terminal functionality. Has this been resolved in another discussion? 

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