Re: [Discussion] Have curl honor OpenSSH configurations

[Timothe Litt via curl-library]

On 11-Aug-22 10:23, Randall via curl-library wrote:

Washttps://github.com/curl/curl/issues/9285

Originally opened by Ben Voris. The request was to have curl support OpenSSH
config specifications. I am opening a discussion on this subject from the
above case. The ask is whether it would make sense to have an option to
allow curl to honor ~/.ssh/config while attempting to connect?

Ben Voris has a significant usability point in the case, including: " I had
hoped that because curl libssh and libssh uses OpenSSH, it would honor the
config file and so allow curl to behave like OpenSSH clients."

Many software projects other than OpenSSH honor ~/.ssh/config. An option in
curl like --use-ssh-config might be something of value even if not the
default.

Regards,
Randall

--
Brief whoami: NonStop&UNIX developer since approximately
UNIX(421664400)
NonStop(211288444200000000)
-- In real life, I talk too much.

This seems like the wrong way to approach the original request (stated on github)  for several reasons.

curl --config $(HOST).curl.ssh.cfg

where example.net.curl.ssh.cfg might contain

default-port 65534



Or simply (with no change required to curl)

url = "sftp://someu...@example.net/file.ext";





[altport.example.net]

default-port 65534

[otherport.example.net]

default-port 43556

[*.example.net]

compressed-ssh



Timothe Litt
ACM Distinguished Engineer
--------------------------
This communication may not represent the ACM or my employer's views,
if any, on the matters discussed.

Reading other commands' config files creates unmanaged dependencies on those projects - formats, options, and/or defaults may or may not be stable.  Which commands deserve this treatment is also unbounded - should curl read ~/.ftp?  .mx? .freepopsd? .firefox? .gopher? .tftp? .telnet?  ...  Besides reading the config files in ~, what about /etc/sysconfig (or /etc/default)? And the commands that scan a .d directory for additional config files?  Really, this gets out of hand really, really fast. It seems more reasonable to have a --default-port option, then put it in ~/.curlrc or use --config.  E.g. (and any other useful options - perhaps proxy to use, --compressed-ssh, etc). Or have the makefile extract the port number from your HOST variable when generating the ssh command.  Or have the makefile generate a suitable --config as a temporary file. Or (more generally useful) extend the curl config file syntax to have per-host options, e.g. perhaps There are other reasonable solutions, but reading other commands config files isn't one of them.

OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

-- 
Unsubscribe: https://lists.haxx.se/listinfo/curl-library
Etiquette:   https://curl.se/mail/etiquette.html