Help with WinCVS SSH mode + PuTTY

[don]

Are any Windows developers here using WinCVS SSH and PuTTY to connect to Celestia's CVS repository? If so, please e-mail me if you can help me set this up. I spent most of the day and night yesterday trying to get this working ... to no avail.

The pserver setting works fine but I can't get SSH to work through WinCVS and PuTTY. Yes, I can use PuTTY directly to connect and it works fine.

Or, is there a better way?

Thank you.

-Don G.

[t00fri]

Are any Windows developers here using WinCVS SSH and PuTTY to connect to Celestia's CVS repository? If so, please e-mail me if you can help me set this up. I spent most of the day and night yesterday trying to get this working ... to no avail.

The pserver setting works fine but I can't get SSH to work through WinCVS and PuTTY. Yes, I can use PuTTY directly to connect and it works fine.

Or, is there a better way?

Thank you.

-Don G.

Don,

I do not see what your specific problem might have been. Since the configuration of WinCVS is too trivial to be repeated here, I guess, your problems were rather related to ssh. In my case the whole thing took less than 15 minutes.

The main trick is to have a solid installation of OpenSSh on your Windows machine. This can be tested easily and independently of SF. I don't even know what PuTTY is and actually never needed it.

All you got to do is to login to your SF account with your password and then call the ssh /public key/ update dialog. There you fill in your /local/ public ssh key via cut & paste and type return. After waiting for a while (until the info is recorded in the SF records) you may straight update with the command

Code: Select all

 cvs -d:ext:t00fri@cvs.celestia.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/celestia up -d -P


(in my case).

The procedure is absolutely standard and holds for any ssh communication with public key authorization in an arbitrary client-server setup.

The building of Celestia with MS$ Visual Studio.Net (7.x) on my XP Laptop also was a very simple matter (in a sense much simpler than what is required under Linux;-)). So meanwhile I can work on Celestia also when I am travelling ...

Unfortunately, since some weeks I spent all my little free time to hunt down a number of left over bugs in my Linux upgrade to the latest SuSE 9.0. Christophe knows all about this nightmare ...

Bye Fridger

[don]

Thanks Fridger.

I'm beginning to think that Chris hasn't added me to the write list yet, since the message I get most often now is ...

Code: Select all

cvs update: warning: unrecognized response `Welcome to cvs1.sourceforge.net
' from cvs server
cvs update: warning: unrecognized response `
' from cvs server
cvs update: warning: unrecognized response `This is a restricted Shell Account
' from cvs server
cvs update: warning: unrecognized response `You cannot execute anything here.
' from cvs server
cvs update: warning: unrecognized response `
' from cvs server
cvs update: warning: unrecognized response `Using username "dgoyette".
' from cvs server
cvs [update aborted]: end of file from server (consult above messages if any)

But, I can log into my shell server account with no problem.

The reply to my SourceForge.net Support Request did nothing more than point me to the status page, which I had already read.

Guess I'll just wait a couple more days.

-Don G.

PS. By the way, your laptop set-up sounds great!

[don]

UPDATE

When using WinCvs and PuTTY (as recommended by SourceForge.net) ...

As of WinCvs version 1.3.15.1, the following Settings are BROKEN (Admin / Preferences / General tab / ssh Authentication / Settings button) ...

* SSH client
* Additional SSH options

The SSH client box will take ONLY a directory and program name. If you attempt to specify run-time options, they will be passed to the CVS server, instead of becomming part of the program execute line.

Anything entered in the Additional SSH options box is also sent to the server, instead of becomming part of the program execute line.

Do NOT follow the SourceForge.net directions to generate a SSH2 DSA key, because you cannot get it to work in the current WinCvs. You MUST generate a SSH1 RSA key, which is the default key type that plink.exe uses. When you generate a SSH2 key, you MUST tell plink.exe to use SSH2 by specifying "-2" as a runtime command. But, runtime commands cannot currently be entered into WinCvs.

I hope this saves someone some time in the future.

-Don G.

[t00fri]

UPDATE

When using WinCvs and PuTTY (as recommended by SourceForge.net) ...

As of WinCvs version 1.3.15.1, the following Settings are BROKEN (Admin / Preferences / General tab / ssh Authentication / Settings button) ...

* SSH client
* Additional SSH options

The SSH client box will take ONLY a directory and program name. If you attempt to specify run-time options, they will be passed to the CVS server, instead of becomming part of the program execute line.

Anything entered in the Additional SSH options box is also sent to the server, instead of becomming part of the program execute line.

Do NOT follow the SourceForge.net directions to generate a SSH2 DSA key, because you cannot get it to work in the current WinCvs. You MUST generate a SSH1 RSA key, which is the default key type that plink.exe uses. When you generate a SSH2 key, you MUST tell plink.exe to use SSH2 by specifying "-2" as a runtime command. But, runtime commands cannot currently be entered into WinCvs.

I hope this saves someone some time in the future.

-Don G.

Again I am confused. Of course I communicate via SSH2 DSA public key and WinCVS with CVS. I just proceeded as described in my previous post above. The public key is always generated on the local machine and has to be transported somehow to the remote one (SF). In this case, the simplest is by cut & paste. No runtime commands etc needed?? You keep talking about various auxiliary programs (plink. exe for example, that I just did not need, at least I don't remember using them;-))

Bye Fridger

[don]

Hi Fridger,

I too had a pre-installed SSH Telnet program, but WinCvs did not recognize or use it. So, I installed the PuTTY package as recommended by SourceForge docs. At the time, I did not know about OpenSSH, which you are using. The PuTTY package consists of several individual programs (puttygen, plink, pageant and PuTTY). pageant is the background key-handler and plink is the background telnet program. In WinCvs, the SSH program name and options are specified on a dialog box via the Settings button next to Authorization type.

plink's default key checking is SSH1 RSA. If you want it to use a SSH2 key, you *must* specify a runtime command of "-2", which WinCvs no longer allows (it's broken). So, this forces a WinCvs+PuTTY user to use plink's default key type of SSH1 RSA.

On the other hand, it sounds like OpenSSH will automatically process different types of SSH keys, which is obviously what PuTTYs plink *should* be doing <sigh>.

Hope this helps to clear up any confusion.

-Don G.

[t00fri]

Hi Fridger,

I too had a pre-installed SSH Telnet program, but WinCvs did not recognize or use it. So, I installed the PuTTY package as recommended by SourceForge docs. At the time, I did not know about OpenSSH, which you are using. The PuTTY package consists of several individual programs (puttygen, plink, pageant and PuTTY). pageant is the background key-handler and plink is the background telnet program. In WinCvs, the SSH program name and options are specified on a dialog box via the Settings button next to Authorization type.

plink's default key checking is SSH1 RSA. If you want it to use a SSH2 key, you *must* specify a runtime command of "-2", which WinCvs no longer allows (it's broken). So, this forces a WinCvs+PuTTY user to use plink's default key type of SSH1 RSA.

On the other hand, it sounds like OpenSSH will automatically process different types of SSH keys, which is obviously what PuTTYs plink *should* be doing <sigh>.

Hope this helps to clear up any confusion.

-Don G.

Don,

first of all, Telnet and SSh are two absolutely different pairs of shoes!

All you need is OpenSSh, get it installed and then transfer your public key to SF. The SF recommendations I can only understand to be meant for people who have no basic understanding of how SSh functions. No further programs are needed, believe me. These only make you fight with their residual bugs!;-)

Bye Fridger

[don]

first of all, Telnet and SSh are two absolutely different pairs of shoes!

Sorry, I thought SSH was Secure Telnet.

All you need is OpenSSh

OpenSSH is a dead project ...

"This OpenSSH project is shutting down. I no longer have the time to maintain a package that is, for the most part, unnecessary due to improvements in the installation process of Cygwin."

Trying to access it on SourceForge provides an "Invalid Project" error.

And, I don't use Cygwin either.

-Don G.

[selden]

Don,

Can you provide a link to where you found that information about OpenSSH?

Hopefully, you're confusing OpenSSH with some other software package. OpenSSH is the open-source SSH product used on most Unix and Linux systems. I can find no mention on http://www.openssh.com/ of it being discontinued.

OpenSSH is not involved in the Cygwin installation procedure, although it is one of the packages included with Cygwin.

Added somewhat later:
As best I can tell, OpenSSH development has never been hosted on SourceForge, although many SourceForge projects use it.

[t00fri]

first of all, Telnet and SSh are two absolutely different pairs of shoes!

Sorry, I thought SSH was Secure Telnet.

Whatever this means. The Ssh protocol is completely unrelated to Telnet...

All you need is OpenSSh

OpenSSH is a dead project ...

This sounds grotesque;-). The whole scientific world on this globe communicates with Openssh. Every morning I feel a little more "dead", indeed;-). You meant to say "dead for Windows addicts", I suppose...

"This OpenSSH project is shutting down. I no longer have the time to maintain a package that is, for the most part, unnecessary due to improvements in the installation process of Cygwin."

Trying to access it on SourceForge provides an "Invalid Project" error.

And, I don't use Cygwin either.

-Don G.

Indeed, I use Openssh from Cygwin in Windows XP. After all, the Unix community invented the internet and Bill Gates tried to buy it off;-)

But anyhow, all I tried to tell you is that the whole SSh issue is a matter of minutes...if you do it right...

Bye Fridger

[don]

Don,

Can you provide a link to where you found that information about OpenSSH?

http://www.networksimplicity.com/openssh/

All I did was enter "+openssh +download +windows" into Google. I did not know they had their own web site.

As best I can tell, OpenSSH development has never been hosted on SourceForge, although many SourceForge projects use it.

Doing a search on SF lists OpenSSH as a project. Clicking the link brings up a page that says "Invalid Project".

-Don G.

[selden]

Don,

"OpenSSH on Windows" is not "OpenSSH".

"OpenSSH on Windows by Matt Bradshaw" is the discontinued project. Apparently Matt has moved on to bigger and better things.

"OpenSSH on Windows by Michael Johnson" is alive and well.
See http://lexa.mckenna.edu/sshwindows/

[don]

Hi Fridger,

Sorry I'm dumb about the differences between Telnet and SSH. I just read some stuff and am a bit more ejukated now.

You meant to say "dead for Windows addicts", I suppose...

You supposed correctly. Very sorry!

Indeed, I use Openssh from Cygwin in Windows XP.

I should have known this, but wrongly assumed you were using a Windows version on Windows. How silly of me.

Interestingly enough, the OpenSSH web site lists PuTTY as the #1 alternative for Windows users.

-Don G.

[don]

Thank you for the link Selden.

Since this version of OpenSSH still requires a partial Cygwin install, I think I'll stick with the pure Win32 binaries of PuTTY for now.

-Don G.