Re: Advise request on adding a new SSH variant

From: Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.email>
Date: May 4, 2021, 14:45 UTC
Message-ID: <fa8f81db-d470-130e-115d-7aef5e97e5a7@iee.email>
In-Reply-To: <043101d73aae$026409b0$072c1d10$@nexbridge.com>

Hi Randall, some drive-by comments..

On 26/04/2021 16:08, Randall S. Becker wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

> Hi Team,
>
> I am getting a bunch of requests from my team (and customers) to make SSH
> configuration easier on the NonStop platform. 
> We are currently using a
> wrapper script to drive the variant of SSH on the platform but that is not
> convenient for many people. 
> I would like to add an ssh.Variant called
> "nonstopssh", or something like that, which takes a few extra parameters.
> -Q (quiet), -Z (don't display the banner), -p port (obvious but typically
> required), -S (a system process name).

https://git-scm.com/docs/git-config#Documentation/git-config.txt-sshvariant

Sounds sensible to me. Maybe also look at past issues that Git-for-Windows had with folks having too much prior choice (plink, putty, tortoiseplink). May need more clarity in the docs ;-)

> The code in connect.c looks pretty
> straight forward, but I'm wondering about the best way to pass in a process
> name (it would be something like "$ZSSHX" - usually an environment variable
> "SSH2_PROCESS_NAME").

Hopefully others can chime in.. Maybe see discussion at <pull.913.git.1616511182942.gitgitgadget@gmail.com> about $ARG variable.

> The program name for SSH, I assume, could come from
> GIT_SSH_COMMAND (typically "/G/system/zssh/sshoss", or I could force it if
> not supplied).

https://git-scm.com/docs/git-config#Documentation/git-config.txt-coresshCommand

> I'm also wondering about controls for the -Q and -Z
> parameters.
> Should I just use the environment for this and build up args or
> is there a more appropriate way of managing these values?

Show 10 quoted lines

>
> Thanks in advance,
> Randall
>
> -- Brief whoami:
> NonStop developer since approximately 211288444200000000
> UNIX developer since approximately 421664400
> -- In my real life, I talk too much.
>
>

I was also thinking that the lack of replies maybe links to the "Pain points in Git's patch flow" thread <YHaIBvl6Mf7ztJB3@google.com> whereby it's all about the proposed patch, rather than thoughts about a potential patch. (Sort of like the philosophy of science [method] that ignores opinion, and demands evidence)

-- Philip