Improving sftp (was Re: BUG: scp -r follows symlinks)

[Darren Tucker]

Peter Stuge wrote:
> While on this topic, are there any existing plans for development of sftp
> and sftp-server in OpenSSH?  Should they eventually be broken-out projects
> that evolve independently of the core ssh system or will they always be
> provided with openssh as sftp and/or general subsystem examples?

Since SFTP is defined by the IETF SECSH Working Group (although I see 
the last SFTP draft has expired and isn't listed on the web page[1] any 
more) I would imagine that OpenSSH will always have them.

sftp and sftp-server are still being developed (see the CVS logs) and 
there are other things that haven't been completed yet (eg Ben's sftp 
readline patch).  If there is something you want that it doesn't have, 
add it and send a patch!

> I don't know of very many file transfer programs that can use the features
> of ssh/sftp (or even do sftp at all, only sftp and WinSCP2 come to mind)
> and I'm thinking about the best way to get/make one.

PuTTY, SecureCRT and ssh.com's Windows client all have sftp clients.  I 
stongly suspect there are others.

[1] http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/secsh-charter.html
There's an old SFTP draft here:
http://www.openssh.com/txt/draft-ietf-secsh-filexfer-02.txt

-- 
Darren Tucker (dtucker at zip.com.au)
GPG key 8FF4FA69 / D9A3 86E9 7EEE AF4B B2D4  37C9 C982 80C7 8FF4 FA69
     Good judgement comes with experience. Unfortunately, the experience
usually comes from bad judgement.