ssh on windows

[Steve Borho]

Hello,

I'd like some feedback on how to handle SSH in the 'batteries included'
windows installers I'm building.  I'm alternating between three frames
of mind and can't decide on the best approach.  These can be summarized
as:

A)  Mercurial is pretty functional without SSH and configuring an SSH
client and key management system is best left to a sysadmin or a
suitably motivated user.  If you bundle SSH tools, people will expect
them to work out of the box, so don't even try.

B)  Bundle PuttyGen, Pageant, Putty, and TortoisePlink (which is
basically plink.exe plus a tiny GUI that accepts passwords and
passphrases).  Configure Mercurial.ini to use TortoisePlink, then just
provide links to all the documentation.

C)  Bundle paramiko & pycrypto and hack together a GUI to accept
passwords or keys.  Create a small app, say pyssh, that could be used on
all platforms that Mercurial supports.

Option C is the most work, but it could be later integrated into
something like TortoiseHG or other projects.

Any thoughts?

PS: I know there have been many discussions about a Quick Start app for
configuring ~/.hgrc and possibly a repo .hg/hgrc.  I might pick up such
a project.  If you have specific requirements, let me here them.

-- 
Steve Borho <steve at borho.org>