Re: TRAMP password caching

[Stefan Monnier]

>> I think we should revert the default to ssh rather than scp: the behavior of
>> the ssh method is much cleaner/smoother/userfriendly.  Its only downside is
>> a lesser performance but I think this is a secondary issue.
> I what way is it cleaner/smoother/more userfriendly apart from the
> password caching problem?

1 - the password caching problem.
2 - the performance of scp is good for large files, but not for small files.
    The performance of ssh is just the opposite.  The advantage of ssh here
    is that it doesn't surprise nearly as much: nobody is surprised that
    editing a large file remotely is slow.

> According to the manual, password cashing works if password.el is
> included in Emacs.  If there is no legal problem here, this seems to be
> the right solution.

There are several problems with password caching.  I'm pretty sure we won't
be able to fix them all.  E.g. security is one of them that's unlikely to be
fixed.
And I learned the hard way that password-less logins are not always an
option: our sysadmins have changed to kerberos-based NFS security, so until
I provide a password, the sshd daemon can't even read my
.ssh/authorized_keys file.


        Stefan