[Savannah-hackers] [Fwd - Frm: address@hidden, Subj: Re: Adding your SSHv2 keys ot savannah]

[Bradley M. Kuhn]

savannah-hcakers, could you please assist this user?

----- Forwarded message from Dave Davey <address@hidden> -----

To: "Bradley M. Kuhn" <address@hidden>
From: Dave Davey <address@hidden>
Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2003 11:14:09 +1100
Subject: Re: Adding your SSHv2 keys ot savannah

On Wed, Dec 24, 2003 at 10:44:49AM -0500, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
> >        (1) All authorized SSH keys have been removed from the database.
> >        Once your account is reactivated, you must again upload your
> >        SSH key.
>
> Richard Stallman wrote:
>
> > The announcement doesn't say how to do this, and I do not know.  I
> > suspect that many people do not know.  Would you please send another
> > announcement saying how?
>
> You do so via the "Edit the SSH Public Key(s) Registered" link from the
> https://savannah.gnu.org/account/ page.
>

Dear Bradley:

Can I make a plea for newcomers to gnu projects for a clear, complete, tested,
and illustrated with an example or two, roadmap from being appointed as a
maintainer to uploading the first new distribution.  I've been trying to get
down this road for nearly two months and am ready to give up with the
assessment "it's security by obscurity".

As an example, I cannot follow the URL above "https://savannah.gnu.org/account/";
because it demands that I log in first.  If I log in and enter the URL, I get
the same message.  So eventually I stumble through and find the page.

Then I try to enter SSH public key.  But I have to make a complete guess at
the format of the key - there is no indication of what it should look like,
e.g. whether there should be labels or comments.  So I guess at just the bare
RSA string from my public key file.  But probably a bad guess, since the
"My Account" page now reads
        "Edit the 1 SSH Public Key(s) Registered
    Your Savannah password is useless for cvs, rynsc, scp and sftp. You have
    to register a SSH Shared key for thoses purposes."

I tried looking at 
"https://savannah.gnu.org/faq/?group_id=5802&question=How_do_I_add_files_in_the_download_area.txt";,
 which at my stage of trying to use your
system appears the most important one.  But to me it is a mess:
        1.  The "Add a FIle" section starts with "You can use rsync or scp.
                For example, using rsync:"
                and follows with an scp command!.
        2.  The scp command includes "-1" which I think is aimed at an
                ssh2 user trying to communicate with an ssh1 server.  Have
                you not changed to ssh2?
        3.  It continues with "Note: we are currently having problems with
                sftp, for some it works, for others it doesn't. If it doesn't
                work, fill a bug report with the -v output of your command.
                You can also use sftp ... "  The second sentence does not
                follow from the first.
        4.  In the first paragraph which mentions the SSH key, there is a
                reference to "the FAQ entry *How do I configure my SSH access?*"
                but there is no link. When you find the page, you read
                "First, you should know that here, on Savannah, we use SSH
                version 1, with RSA."

I'm not usually defeated by this sort of thing.  With 25 years of Unix
experience I'm not unfamiliar with documentation lagging behind practice.
But I can't adopt the usual strategy of reading the code, since I don't
have access to savannah's.  I also have years of experience with ssh,
but use the "real" ssh2, not the open_ssh one.  This complicates matters a
little, but when I have understood the other end of a link, has not stopped me
doing what I aim to.

look forward to some assistance, after which maybe I can assist you....

chers

Dave



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----- End forwarded message -----

   -- bkuhn
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