[Monotone-devel] a cryptographic note to the folks working on .nuskool

[Zack Weinberg]

The present netsync protocol uses a cryptographic primitive (RSA
 decryption) that isn't supported by ssh-agent.¹  This is why you get
 prompted for your passphrase on 'mtn sync' even if your key is already
 loaded into the agent.

 In implementing the new network protocol, please consider making the
 crypto handshake require *only* RSA/DSA signatures, as that is the
 only primitive that seems to be universally supported by ssh-agent.
 I'm not sure how to do that, but evidently ssh itself does, so it must
 be possible.

 zw

 ¹ The protocol has reserved numbers for RSA decryption, but in
 searching around trying to find the details of those packets, what
 kept coming up was "not implemented" stubs. :-(