Ah well you learn something new everyday.

ssh-agent sounds good for a lot of uses. However, I do not think it would buy much in what I'm guessing is Pearte's situation. He suggests that this will be most likely (and hopefully) run by a separate non-human userid. As long as you give that account the minimum security permissions (as you do with all of your accounts anyway, right? :) ), then ssh with empty password'ed keys should be as secure as you need.

But thanks mdillon for pointing that out!!! :)

Ciao,
Gryn