Arch Linux

alexandrei

Member

Registered: 2006-09-01

Posts: 5

SSH+CVS - help to move settings from WinXP+Putty+TortoiseCVS to linux

Hello,

I have some trouble with SSH and CVS, and this is the only place where it crossed my mind to ask for help. If It's really Off-Topic, please ignore it, or move/delete it.

At work we use for a client a CVS server, hosted on the client's server. We are given a private SSH key, and instructions to set up Tortoise CVS + Putty, to access the server, without a password.

In the mean time, I got Arch on the PC, and now I'm dual-booting, using mostly Linux.  I'd like to be able to use the CVS from Linux, but I could not get it to work yet. It is difficult, as I can't ask for assistance from them about this - so I have to manage only with their instructions and the Internet.

The instructions are like this:

1. Install a SSH client like putty
2.Configure a SSH session in Putty
Category->Session
     - Host Name (Or Ip Adress)    :    W.X.Y.Z (the server's IP)
     - Port                                   :    2222
     - Connection Type                 :    SSH

Category->Connection->Data
     - Auto-login username              :     <your login>

Category->Connection->SSH->Aut
    - Tick the box : "Attempt authentication using Pageant"
    - Tick the box : "Attempt  keyboard-interactive auth (SSH-2)"
    - Tick the box : "Allow attempted changes of username in SSH-2"
    - Private key file authentification : <PathFileName of your private key file (*.ppk)>
Category->Session
    - Save your session with an arbtrary name ex: ssh-cvs-valid

3. Install a tortoise CVS client

4. In Tortoise preferences->Tools : Check that :
   SSH application : C: \Program Files\TortoiseCVS\TortoisePlink.exe
(Check that exe Exist !) SSH paramters  : -l "%u" "%h"
   SSH cvs server  : cvs

5. Configure your client with these parameters :
                    - connection :          Secure shell (: ext:)
                    - server :                 <your putty session>
(ex: ssh-cvs-valid)
                    - repositery folder :   /soft/cvs
                    - login :                   <your login>

6. Do a Checkout to test your configuration

The private key is already provided by them, and from what I remeber, it does not have a password (at first it did, but there were some problems).

I've converted the key from it's format to openssh format using "ssh-keygen -i -f original_key.ppk > ~/.ssh/ir_dsa" and then "chmod 700 ~/.ssh/ir_dsa" (inside the key there was a comment about it being dsa, not rsa, but I am also not sure)

I then tried to "ssh  -v -l myuser -p 2222 myuser@W.X.Y.Z" to see if it works to login without a password. The key based authentification failed, and it tried with password based - pressing enter for pass did not work.

There were two messages that caught my attention: one about a restriction to "/usr/bin/cvs server" and the other for a failed part of the key or something like that. Stupid me, I haven't got a log of the errors, and now I'm at home.

So, can anyone give me a hint about this? I am quite lost. And, also on the CVS side, initially the CVSROOT was something like: ":ext:myuser@putty-profile-name://soft/cvs" but now.. i don't know how to replace the "putty-profile-name" part

Thank you in advance!

Best regards,
Alex

soloport

Member

Registered: 2005-03-01

Posts: 442

Re: SSH+CVS - help to move settings from WinXP+Putty+TortoiseCVS to linux

Things to check:
* be sure original_key.ppk is the public key
* public keys (on the Linux side) should be concatenated into the file: ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
* ~/.ssh folder should have permissions for owner exclusively (i.e. chmod 700 ~/.ssh)

Also, 'ssh-keygen -i -f original_key.ppk' outputs RSA (SSH2) key.  So if you want to keep an original copy around (besides the one in authorized_keys) the common convention is: ssh-keygen -i -f original_key.ppk > ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub