Re: TRAMP password caching

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Cc: address@hidden, address@hidden, address@hidden
> From: Michael Albinus <address@hidden>
> Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 13:26:16 +0100
> >
> > I checked this now: on Windows, pscp behaves like scp and plink
> > behaves like ssh on Posix platforms.  In other words, we should indeed
> > change the default method on w32 to plink, because that is faster and
> > asks for the passphrase fewer times.
> 
> That was the default until recently. It was changed because people
> regard ssh (aka plink) methods too slow for copying large files.

I don't understand: didn't you say that you want to change the default
to ssh, or even already changed it?  I thought you were asking me
whether a similar change, from pscp to plink, was a good idea for
Windows.  What am I missing?

> Please do. I hoped it could be determined simply via the existence of
> environment variables (as it is possible with ssh-agent, environment
> variables $SSH_AUTHENTICATION_*), but it doesn't seem so easy. And I
> also don't know a command like 'ps' which returns running processes,
> in order to check whether pageant is active.

Is there code that does this for Unix?  If so, where's that code?

> > Btw, why does pscp method work so hard when pageant is not running?  I
> > see a lot of activity, including remote shell setup, remote `ls'
> > command to get a directory, sending Perl scripts to the remote
> > machine, etc.  Why doesn't it simply invoke pscp to copy the darn
> > file?  Is it for file-name completion, perhaps? if so, maybe we should
> > give users a way of disabling completion?
> 
> All Tramp methods provide a whole implementation of primitive file
> operations. Not only for `copy-file' or `rename-file', but also
> `file-attributes' or `directory-files' etc. Those functions cannot be
> implemented by (p)scp, I fear. Because of this, Tramp opens
> additionally an ssh resp. plink connection.

IMHO, this is just one more reason to move away from pscp as the
default.