future of subsystem requests

[Paul Heinlein]

I was testing the Linux port of 2.1.0p2 and noticed that the F-Secure SSH
client for Windows 4.0 couldn't successfully connect using its secure
file-transfer facility.

The server log reported that authentication was successful, then the log
left off with a semi-cryptic "subsystem request for sftp" line. After
that, nothing.

Poking around the source, I found this little routine in session.c (it
appears to be identical to the same routine in the OpenBSD source, so it's
not a porting issue):

  int
  session_subsystem_req(Session *s)
  {
      unsigned int len;
      int success = 0;
      char *subsys = packet_get_string(&len);

      packet_done();
      log("subsystem request for %s", subsys);

      xfree(subsys);
      return success;
  }

To my eyes, this looks like a planned no-op. Markus Friedl earlier 
reported that, as of late April, sftp was still on the to-do list. What
about the future (or lack thereof) of an OpenSSH subsystem facility in
general?

Paul Heinlein
heinlein at cse.ogi.edu