Bug report : MC freezes reproducable when requesting SSH password for Fish VFS

[Hans Peter Stroebel <hpstr operamail com>]

Hello List-Members,

<bad english>

I experienced the following problem with MC, console edition, different 
versions (see below) on Linux :

When using the Fish virtual file system by connecting to a server running 
SSH, entering the virtual directory 

	cd /#sh:user host ,

SSH requests the user`s password when RSA (or other method) authentication 
fails. 

This password request freezes MC after displaying the "Waiting for an initial 
line..." message, messing up the console output (sometimes the request 
appears on top of the screen, sometimes at the bottom). MC does not accept 
any more input and has to be forcely killed.

Trying the FTP VFS instead results in a "regular" console graphics password 
window.

Fish works fine if SSH can authenticate the user using RSA, but that could be 
sometimes (e.g. in my case) not the desired authentication method.

I produced this failure with the following GNU/Linux systems / versions :

- Debian potato, mc 4.52-11 (Debian package)
- Debian potato, mc 4.55 (compiled from source).

Kernel, Bash, SSH versions on request.

Users from de.comp.os.unix.linux.misc reproduced the error with

- Debian sid, MC version unknown
- SuSe (Version unknown), MC 4.5.50
- RedHat 7.1, MC 4.5.51 (Kernel, Bash SSH version reported)
- Debian woody and Mandrake reports pending

so I suppose it is a MC bug and not consequence of misconfiguration.

I did not find the bug neither in the list archives nor in the Debian bug 
tracking system (am I the only one desiring Fish/SSH/password auth ???), so I 
hope that here is the right place to report it.

I tried to check the 4.55 source code for differences between SSH and FTP 
password request detection, but it seems to be quite beyond my capabilities, 
so I can`t include any bugfix suggestions; indeed, I can only _assume_ that 
the reason for the error is in the code piece that recognizes the password 
request.

A fix would be highly welcome, as I consider the MC Fish VFS as a _very_ 
interesting alternative to scp, sftp or ftp tunneling.

Greetings from Germany (and, BTW, thanks to the developers for this great 
swiss-army knife).

</bad english>

Hans

-- 

Hans Peter Stroebel <hpstr operamail com>

Yes, I do. But not Yahoo.