From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai =?iso-8859-15?q?Gro=DFjohann?=) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Integrate Tramp Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 14:29:14 +0200 Sender: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <200206171631.g5HGVBM13861@aztec.santafe.edu> <200206190223.g5J2NlQ15963@aztec.santafe.edu> <5xd6unqw5g.fsf@kfs2.cua.dk> <200206210940.g5L9ei720274@aztec.santafe.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-15 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1024662615 2136 127.0.0.1 (21 Jun 2002 12:30:15 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 12:30:15 +0000 (UTC) Cc: storm@cua.dk, miles@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1 (Debian)) id 17LNYM-0000YL-00 for ; Fri, 21 Jun 2002 14:30:14 +0200 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([199.232.76.164]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 17LO0W-0003sR-00 for ; Fri, 21 Jun 2002 14:59:21 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 17LNYM-0003kG-00; Fri, 21 Jun 2002 08:30:14 -0400 Original-Received: from waldorf.cs.uni-dortmund.de ([129.217.4.42]) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 17LNXV-0003fC-00; Fri, 21 Jun 2002 08:29:21 -0400 Original-Received: from lothlorien.cs.uni-dortmund.de (lothlorien [129.217.19.67]) by waldorf.cs.uni-dortmund.de with ESMTP id g5LCTKb02104; Fri, 21 Jun 2002 14:29:20 +0200 (MES) Original-Received: from lucy.cs.uni-dortmund.de (lucy [129.217.19.80]) by lothlorien.cs.uni-dortmund.de id OAA09984; Fri, 21 Jun 2002 14:29:15 +0200 (MET DST) Original-Received: by lucy.cs.uni-dortmund.de (Postfix, from userid 6104) id B087C3B5E4; Fri, 21 Jun 2002 14:29:14 +0200 (CEST) Original-To: rms@gnu.org In-Reply-To: <200206210940.g5L9ei720274@aztec.santafe.edu> (Richard Stallman's message of "Fri, 21 Jun 2002 03:40:44 -0600 (MDT)") Original-Lines: 55 User-Agent: Gnus/5.090007 (Oort Gnus v0.07) Emacs/21.3.50 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Errors-To: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.9 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:5045 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:5045 Richard Stallman writes: > If the default connection method for unknown hosts was 'ftp, > ange-ftp would work as today; it could also be the fall-back > for 'detect if none of the tramp methods work. > > That sounds good. I have one question, though: how long does it take > to test the various tramp methods? I could imagine that if they involve > trying to open network connections it could take many seconds or even min= utes > to test them. Can you tell us a definitive answer? There are a lot of things which could be auto-detected. For example, Tramp could auto-detect whether mimencode or uuencode should be used in an "inline" method. This kind of thing is fairly quick to test and, what with all the other auto-detecting that is already going on, it wouldn't make much of a difference, efficiency-wise. But I'm not so happy about auto-detecting which program should be used to connect to the remote host. Suppose that Tramp tries "ssh", then "ssh -2", then "ssh -1", then "rlogin", then "telnet" and possibly also the Kerberized login programs. First of all, waiting for a timeout from all these programs could take a long time. Secondly, it might result in the user getting asked strange questions. (Suppose Tramp tries to log me in to the GNU machines with Kerberos, but I've never used Kerberos. Then I'd get asked Kerberos questions which I don't know how to answer.)=B9 Also note that (length tramp-methods) =3D> 30. Maybe a handful of these methods are not necessary anymore. But the lion's share of them were added by me because they fulfilled a real need. Maybe this gives you some idea about the task to do auto-detection. Another remark: It would be great if Tramp could auto-detect everything. But I've been working on Tramp for a while and so I know that it will take me a long time to implement all of this. (If I can do it at all.) So my suggestion is to keep "more auto-detection" in mind as a long-term goal, to work towards this goal in a step-by-step fashion, and to design the current interface (filename syntax) for Tramp in such a way that the auto-detection is not necessary for Tramp to work. I think that Tramp is useful even if it does not do more auto-detection. Note: I want to add caching to Tramp so that auto-detection only needs to happen once for a given user/host combination. kai =B9 I hope that Kerberos really asks questions. I don't know, I've never used Kerberos. But this was just intended as an example -- feel free to replace this example with another one. --=20 A large number of young women don't trust men with beards. (BFBS Radio)