Cockpit Desktop - created .desktop and ssh auth feedback

[josh-hemphill]

When trying to find something to let me access the cockpit interface both locally and without having to expose the web service, I discovered the desktop script beta, and have really been enjoying it.

I created a .desktop file for myself, and it's been working great:

#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Name=Cockpit Local
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/ssh
Exec=/usr/libexec/cockpit-desktop / %u
Icon=/usr/share/cockpit/branding/default/apple-touch-icon.png
StartupWMClass=cockpit-client

The setting in the desktop file making it an SSH uri hanlder, and setting it as my default has let me just maintain a list of the hostnames of my servers elsewhere and then just click to launch to automagically be logged into cockpit on that system via SSH, it's nearly perfect.

Though I got a little lucky (when my auth didn't break because I hadn't marked some of them as known hosts), my system-level cert auth meant that authorizing into the other servers was a breeze; however, it seems that if there's password/2fa/known-host prompts, those all get lost in the script and result it hanging and eventually crashing, but still presenting the standard Cockpit login window even though it can't do anything since it's already disconnected; since the launch of the ssh and webview happen asynchronously, even with cert auth, I get a big white screen until I'm completely done with my system auth, which is pretty jarring.

If anyone has ideas how to improve this flow, I'd love to help on some PRs, I think this could be a really great experience with a little polish.