Manual intervention needed to set up code import over empty-password SSH

[Max Bowsher]

This is a pretty obscure corner case, but lifeless asked me to file a bug in https://answers.launchpad.net/launchpad/+question/117193

In some fairly rare cases, seemingly limited to BSD OSes, anonymous CVS access is provided over SSH with an empty password. In such a situation, it is necessary to ask the LOSAs to accept the SSH host key into the ~importd/.ssh/known_hosts store before code imports can work.

Technically the same situation could exist for non-CVS code imports, but svn and git provide non-SSH anonymous serving options that are considerably less flaky than cvs pserver, so the issue is unlikely to ever arise.

[Thorsten Glaser (mirabilos)]

It might be enough to run things like this:

ssh -o 'StrictHostKeyChecking no' -l _anoncvs anoncvs.mirbsd.org

It’s almost certainly possible to create a script like this:

#!/bin/sh
exec /usr/bin/ssh -o 'StrictHostKeyChecking no' "$@"

… and put it either into the $PATH as ssh, or export CVS_RSH=/path/to/this/script in order to get the checking done automatically, unless the keys do change.

[Thorsten Glaser (mirabilos)]

I’d like to know why Curtis Hovey <email address hidden> is of the opinion that LP doesn’t support cvs over ssh, while this is being processed here, and how he thinks LP can import code from CVS servers over an unencrypted, not authenticated protocol reliably.

[Robert Collins (lifeless)]

Many CVS servers only offer :pserver:, so its entirely out of our hands whether we can do :ext: or not for a given server. If memory serves me correctly we do support :ext:.

[Martin Pool (mbp)]

On 6 April 2011 17:41, Thorsten Glaser <email address hidden> wrote:
> I’d like to know why Curtis Hovey <email address hidden> is of the
> opinion that LP doesn’t support cvs over ssh, while this is being
> processed here,

What does "this is being processed here" mean in this sentence?