ANNOUNCE: LSH-2.0

[Niels Möller]

I'm happy to announce a new version of LSH, the GNU implementation of
the secure shell protocols. LSH includes a client, a server, and a few
scripts and utility programs.

The LSH-2.0 release, and any following LSH-2.0.x updates, are intended
to be stable. New features will be added to LSH-2.1.x.

FEATURES

The most notable changes and new features in LSH-2.0 are:

o  Incompatible change to key format, to comply with the latest spki
   structure draft. You can use the script lsh-upgrade to copy and
   convert the information in the old .lsh/known-hosts to the new file
   .lsh/host-acls, and the script lsh-upgrade-key to convert private
   keys to the new format. (This change was made between lsh-1.5 and
   lsh-1.5.1).

o  X11 forwarding support in lshd, enabled by default (lsh 
   doesn't ask for X11 forwarding by default).

o  Several programs have new default behaviour:

   * lsh-keygen generates RSA rather than DSA keys by default.

   * lsh-writekey encrypts the private key by default, using
     aes256-cbc. Unless the --server flag is used.

o  Client support for the "keyboard-interactive" user authentication
   method.

o  SOCKS-style forwarding, using lsh -D. Supports both SOCKS-4 and
   SOCKS-5.

o  Support for keyexchange with
   diffie-hellman-group14-sha1/diffie-hellman-group2-sha1 (the
   standardized name is at the moment not decided).

o  The lsh client no longer sets its stdio file descriptors into
   non-blocking mode, which should avoid a bunch of problems. As a
   consequence, the --cvs-workaround command line option has been
   deleted.

o  Includes x86 assembler code for arcfour and sha1.

o  Deleted the --ssh1-fallback option for lshd. I hope ssh1 is dead by
   now; if it isn't, you have to run ssh1d and lshd on different
   ports.
        
o  Deleted code for bug-compatibility with ancient versions of
   Datafellow's SSH2. There are zero bug-compatibility hacks in this
   version.


Some of the older (LSH-1.0, LSH-1.2, LSH-1.4) features are

o  Random numbers are generated using the Yarrow pseudorandomness
   generator, which improves security in particular on systems without
   /dev/random. A new program lsh-make-seed is provided for
   initializing the generator.

o  AES is now the default cipher. Faster assembler versions are
   included for x86 and sparc.

o  lshd handles SIGHUP by closing its listening socket, and then
   waiting for existing connections to be closed before exiting. This
   makes it easier to restart lshd in a friendly way.

o  A "gateway" interface, which lets you create a single SSH connection
   to a remote host, and reuse that connection for later commands.
   Ideal for applications like remote CVS.

o  Limited Kerberos support, comparable to that available for the
   original sshd.

o  Experimental support for Secure Remote Password (SRP) authentication.

o  Experimental support for IPv6.

o  A manual.


COMPATIBILITY AND PORTABILITY

LSH implements the secsh protocol as defined by the latest drafts from
the IETF secsh working group, and interoperates with other
implementations, including SSH Inc's SSH2 products and OpenSSH. Note
that LSH is *not* compatible with SSH1.

LSH is intended to be portable. LSH-2.0 compiles and works on at least

  * GNU/Linux (x86, x86_64, ia64, alpha)

  * FreeBSD (x86)
  
  * Solaris (sparc)

  * Darwin/MacOS X (ppc)
  
The current version probably does not work out of the box on AIX and
HPUX.


QUALITY

LSH is provided AS IS, ABSOLUTELY NO GUARANTEES, etc. Please report
any bugs you find.


COPYRIGHT

LSH is distributed under the terms and conditions of the GNU General
Public License.


AVAILABILITY AND FURTHER INFORMATION

The LSH home page at

  http://www.lysator.liu.se/~nisse/lsh/

The main LSH archive is located at

  ftp://ftp.lysator.liu.se/pub/security/lsh

Discussions about LSH takes place on the lsh-bugs mailing list. See
http://lists.lysator.liu.se/mailman/listinfo/lsh-bugs.


Happy hacking,
/Niels Möller, <address@hidden>