[Python-Dev] Revised 1.6 jobs list

[Greg Ward]

On 03 June 2000, Jeremy Hylton said:
> SourceForge makes it a little more inconvenient to check which
> patches have been applied.  Under the old CVS arrangement, it was
> a local operation to do a cvs log or diff.  Now it's a slow network
> operation that requires authentication.  (I really want a local
> mirror of the entire CVS repository!)

I have come up with a partial solution to the inconvenience of accessing
SourceForge, specifically the need for constant authentication.  I
generated a new, unencrypted SSH key and put it in ~/.ssh/alt-identity.
Then I wrote a little C program (source attached) that does the
equivalent of

  os.exec ("ssh", "-i", "$HOME/.ssh/alt-identity")

(in an imaginary dialect of Python that interpolates environment
variables ;-).  Then I set CVS_RSH to this little C program
(~/bin/alt_ssh).  (It could have easily been a script, but I wanted to
avoid the overhead of launching an interpreter for every
authentication.)

So now CVS operations against SF are just s..l..o..w, and I'm not
forever typing in my SSH passphrase.  Of course, anyone with root access
at CNRI could now steal my unencrypted key -- which I *only* use for CVS
access to SF -- and use it to impersonate me for checkins.  But I think
the only person who knows how to do that already has Python checkin
privilege.  ;-)

But yeah, remote CVS still bites the big one.  Very painful over a 28.8k 
modem line.  (It sucks being a cheap bastard!)

        Greg
-- 
Greg Ward - software developer                gward@mems-exchange.org
MEMS Exchange / CNRI                           voice: +1-703-262-5376
Reston, Virginia, USA                            fax: +1-703-262-5367