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RE: Subclipse suggestion: improve SSH handling

From: Alexander Kitaev <alex_at_tmate.org>
Date: 2005-10-29 18:58:22 CEST

Hello,
 
Most of the features you've listed are implemented in JavaSVN. When JavaSVN
is used as client adapter (Window | Preferences | Team | SVN) authenticaion
dialog will pop up on first access to repository. This dialog allows one to
provide username, port, password or private key (in OpenSSH format) with
passphrase. This information will be stored in Eclipse keyring file in case
you select to save it.
 
JavaSVN uses Java SSH library (Ganymed) to establish ssh connection,
connection is persistent, so may work slightly faster then with JavaHL and
native ssh client, and you only have to enter password/key once.
 
Current version of JavaSVN doesn't use username encoded in URL (like
svn+ssh://username@host/...), so you may enter desired username in the
authentication dialog. Also, version of JavaSVN included in Subclipse 0.9.36
contains a bug - it sends system user name instead of one provided by the
user. To fix this problem you should replace existing javasvn.jar with the
one available at http://tmate.org/svn/download/javasvn-0.9.4.jar

Alexander Kitaev,
TMate Software,
http://tmatesoft.com/
http://tmate.org/

 

  _____

From: R.W. Shore [mailto:bob@chimneystones.us]
Sent: Saturday, October 29, 2005 12:50
To: users@subclipse.tigris.org
Subject: Subclipse suggestion: improve SSH handling

Environment: Eclipse 3.1.1, Subclipse 0.9.36, WinXP

 

I can get Subclipse to handle svn+ssh URLs properly, but the process feels
somewhat clunky. I have the following recommendations:

 

* Use a built-in ssh implementation rather than relying on an external
program. If this is too hard, make it really, really clear in the
documentation and on the web site that Subclipse needs an external ssh
program to work properly _and_ that the proper place to specify the program
is in the Subversion app data for the user. Also, the dialog that results
when the app data is incorrect should somehow point the user to the app-data
directory, so a dummy user like me has some quick idea of where the problem
is.

* Subclipse should handle URLs of the form svn+ssh://host:port. In
particular, if an external ssh program is used, Subclipse should strip the
":port" from the URL and generate a "-p port" property for the ssh command.

* If Subclipse is going to provide space for a userid on the
repository definition dialog, it should actually pay attention to the values
(as far as I can tell, it does not). In particular, if an external ssh
program is used, Subclipse should use any entry in the userid field to
generate either a 'user@host' host name or the '-l user' option for the ssh
program.

* The separate password field on the repository definition dialog is
never used and as far as I can tell cannot be used as long as Subclipse uses
an external ssh program. There should probably be a warning to this effect
on the dialog.

* IMO, as long as Subclipse uses an external ssh program the
documentation should warn the user that public-key authentication is
effectively required to do anything more than doodle around with Subclipse.
There are just too many password requests, each of which must be answered
manually, to make password authentication a viable option.
Received on Sun Oct 30 03:58:22 2005

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