default --rsh

jw schultz jw at pegasys.ws
Tue Dec 16 07:11:41 EST 2003


On Mon, Dec 15, 2003 at 10:51:08AM -0800, Wayne Davison wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 15, 2003 at 10:03:28AM -0800, jw schultz wrote:
> 
> > The one thing i really would have liked to have seen in a version bump
> > would have been changing the default remote shell to ssh instead of
> > rsh/remsh.
> 
> I can see this being both a good thing (since I think it is a better
> default for new users) and a painful thing (for people who still use
> rsh).  I'd be in favor of making this change, but I'm not sure if we
> should try to slip it into 2.6.0 or not; on the one hand it is a very
> simple change to make, but on the other it has a big impact on how rsync
> works.  I suppose we should just leave it for later.

Code-wise it is almost trivial but user impact for those
that depend on the default being rsh or remsh is potentially
non-trivial.  I think most that need rsh instead of ssh
would be fine just setting RSYNC_RSH but the magic with
[non]blocking io based on

        if ((blocking_io == -1) && (strcmp(cmd, RSYNC_RSH) == 0))
                blocking_io = 1;

might means some might have to add the --blocking-io option
so they might as well use "-e rsh --blocking-io".  Of
course that bit of logic also means that "configure
--with-rsh=ssh" would get the logic wrong too so it is in a
sense broken already.  I suppose we could change that to

        if ((blocking_io == -1) 
            && (strcmp(cmd, 'rsh') == 0) || (strcmp(cmd, 'remsh') == 0))
                        blocking_io = 1;

Which comes close to the intent of the original though it
doesn't deal with someone doing "configure
--with-rsh=/usr/local/bin/rsh"

It would be worthwhile to add a note in INSTALL to advise
people of the --with-rsh configure option.  

Any thoughts, particularly with regard to putting this in
before 2.6.0?




-- 
________________________________________________________________
	J.W. Schultz            Pegasystems Technologies
	email address:		jw at pegasys.ws

		Remember Cernan and Schmitt



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