It's useful stuff.

What I'd really like to see, though, is a tutorial for using SSH keys from a thumbdrive in a way that doesn't depend on Gnome or KDE.

"ssh -i /path/to/key" seems like it would do what you want, which makes me think I don't understand the problem you're trying to solve.

If you're already running ssh-agent for your session, just do `ssh-add /path/to/the/key` - now it will be picked up automatically. If you want to do this automatically, it would require something waiting with inotify on the mount point, or some udev magic...

It might be useful, but it's trivially obtainable by anyone who needs it by googling, and irrelevant to anyone who isn't looking for it at the time.

Your tone is not acceptable here.

The problem isn't SSH itself, but the tutorials out there tend to assume that you're using GNOME or KDE (or, more to the point, their automount systems). If you're not running either one, you're left trying to figure out how to deal with that problem.

Plug in the flash drive, then "tail -n 20 /var/log/syslog" (on most systems, and assumes the system isn't very busy), and look for the notification of the plug-in event with the device node, e.g. /dev/sdb1.

Then, "mount /dev/sdb1 /media/flashdrive", replacing the device node with whatever you see in syslog, and the mount point with the appropriate folder on your filesystem (really, whatever you want it to be -- you can mount something to your home folder if you like). 'mount' should be able to auto-detect the filesystem on the device unless you're running a really old Linux or BSD.

Does that help?

Are you honestly saying you have never discovered something new about a simple tool by reading a tutorial or watching a colleague? If you are fully able to understand the usage and implications of every simple Unix tool based solely on the man page then you are far smarter than not only me but every person I've ever worked with.

ssh is not a simple tool, it just started out as a simple tool. And, it occupies a key role, for better or for worse, as the base layer for secure communications in a unix environment (and beyond).

Combine those two facts, and it's not surprising how many articles there are explaining the ins and outs of ssh.

I've been poring over unix man pages for about 25 years, and we all know their terseness is a delight and a frustration. ("Sharp and newline surround comments." -- takes a minute to parse.) These articles are trying to add words to address the frustration part.