(cc'd to Phil Hands as the Debian package maintainer and so presumably
somebody who worries about compatibility/integration issues.)
On 16 Feb 2001, Michael James <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >How does everybody (especially Martin and Tridge) feel about the idea of
> >rsync defaulting to "-e ssh" if it is invoked under the name ssync? Around
> >here everybody is being told they should stop using r* commands and start
> >using the s* equivalents so it seems a natural changeover. If there is
> >general agreement, I'm willing to implement it and change the default
> >installation to install symlinks at bin/ssync and man/man1/ssync.1.
Personally I don't see any need to build a separate binary when a
shell script or alias would do just as well. Also, I think in any
given system people are going to either be using rsh or ssh, not both.
(Does *anyone* really use rsh rather than daemon or ssh anymore?)
It seems fairly clear that it would be good to change over to SSH as
the default:
* for people who can use either, it's better to be secure by default.
* people still using rsh should be gently encouraged to move to ssh
unless they speifically choose to stay.
* ssh can (optionally) fall back to using rsh if there's no ssh
server listening.
* forgetting to set RSYNC_RSH or -e is a pretty common problem for
people wanting to start using it.
* if all else fails, you can do
--with-default-rsh=/etc/alternatives/remoteshell, or ln -s rsh shh
However, I can imagine this causing small problems for people building
binary distributions.
If Debian (say) changed the default to be ssh, then they'll break
scripts by anybody still using rsh. (On the other hand, people
shouldn't be doing that.) Conversely, if standard builds don't change
the default, then there's not nearly so much point.
On the whole, I think the time when people should be using rsh is long
past, and it's about time to add a --with-default-rsh=[ssh] option to
configure.
http://www.openssh.com/images/shherrif.jpg
Unless somebody objects, I'll put this into the CVS head for 2.4.7.
--
Martin Pool, Human Resource
Linuxcare. Inc. +61 2 6262 8990
[EMAIL PROTECTED], http://linuxcare.com.au/
Linuxcare. Putting Open Source to work.
