[Twisted-Python] secsh, please compare with conch

Tommi Virtanen tv at tv.debian.net
Tue Sep 30 08:39:34 EDT 2003


Hi. I hate duplicated effort (that has not real reason to be 
duplicated), and noticed this:

http://www.lag.net/~robey/secsh/

secsh is a module for python 2.3 that implements the SSH2 protocol for 
secure (encrypted and authenticated) connections to remote machines. 
unlike SSL (aka TLS), SSH2 protocol does not require heirarchical 
certificates signed by a powerful central authority. you may know SSH2 
as the protocol that replaced telnet and rsh for secure access to remote 
shells, but the protocol also includes the ability to open arbitrary 
channels to remote services across the encrypted tunnel (this is how 
sftp works, for example).

the module works by taking a socket-like object that you pass in, 
negotiating with the remote server, authenticating (using a password or 
a given private key), and opening flow-controled "channels" to the 
server, which are returned as socket-like objects. you are responsible 
for verifying that the server's host key is the one you expected to see, 
and you have control over which kinds of encryption or hashing you 
prefer (if you care), but all of the heavy lifting is done by the secsh 
module.

it is written entirely in python (no C or platform-dependent code) and 
is released under the GNU LGPL (lesser GPL).



Could the conch guy please email the author of secsh and see whether 
they could unite their efforts? Please? Thank you.





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