[clug] ssh 'controlpath' - anyone used it?

[Michael Still]

steve jenkin wrote:
> Reading the ssh_config man page, I noticed 'controlpath' for the first time.
> 
> This article + comments is reasonable:
> <http://www.linux.com/articles/54498>
> 
> My question:
>  - does anyone on the list use, or have seen used, this feature
>  - Just where is it useful?? "lots of short connections"....
>    - I tend to use SSH only for: shell access, scp, rsync.

Interesting. I spent the last week writing something quite similar using 
paramiko (a python ssh library).

The ssh protocol is quite interesting. You open a transport channel, and 
the you can open random control channels through that transport, which 
are much like sockets. paramiko includes support for executing commands 
down via the transport channel, as well as opening shells.

You can see my random sample code here:

http://www.stillhq.com/python/paramiko/000001.html
http://www.stillhq.com/python/paramiko/000002.html

Anyways, I don't think this fixes your problem (the judicious use of 
ssh-agent, and some sort of monitoring to yell at you when it goes down 
seems like the solution to that), but I'm getting really into this whole 
ssh as transport thing.

Mikal