+++ /dev/null
-I don't mind the monkeysphere-ssh-proxycommand output on regular connections.
-
-For me it looks something like this with a server not participating in the
-monkey sphere:
-
- ms: processing host: chavez.mayfirst.org
- ms: - key not found.
-
-And like this for a server participating:
-
- ms: processing host: george.riseup.net
- ms: primary key found: 7353A74E3B757F8C
- ms: * acceptable key found.
- ms: known_hosts file updated.
-
-However, I have some batch scripts that run ssh that also provide
-output, so the monkeysphere output clutters things up.
-
-I would really like to either have a -q/--quiet option, or, preferable for me
-at least, would be for silent output to be the default and have a -v/--verbose
-option to get the output. Or - maybe these should be environmental variables?
-In any event - someway to suppress informational output would be a useful
-improvement.
-
-------
-
-I'd be fine with silent mode as a default, with a more verbose mode
-accessible to the user who desires it.
-
-I'd prefer an environment variable (e.g. `MONKEYSPHERE_VERBOSE` or
-`MONKEYSPHERE_DEBUG`) over a command-line (e.g. `--verbose`) option,
-personally. It's more in keeping with the model we've used in general
-so far.
-
---dkg
-
-------
-
-I just completed this feature. I published it to a separate branch
-(called quiet-mode). I haven't committed it to my master branch for a
-couple reasons:
-
- * I made some significant changes and wanted to ask Big Jimmy to take
- a look since it's mostly his stuff I mucked about with.
-
- * Sometime between starting my hacking and mid-way through, my
- ~.ssh/known_hosts file got truncted to nothing. I recovered from a
- backup. I couldn't figure out what caused that to happen and couldn't
- replicate it. I was debugging my bash and what I was debugging
- involved bash redirection, so it's reasonable to think that something
- I did caused the problem. However, before committing we incorporate
- this, I would appreciate another set of eyes on my code to make sure
- I'm not doing something dangerous or just dumb :).
-
-Here's an overview of what I did:
-
-There were two function defined in common that handle sending messages
-to the user: log and loge. They both echo the argument passed to
-standard error. The first one also echo's "ms: " (as a preface to the
-message). loge was only called in two places and I think is left over
-cruft (let me know if I'm wrong please!).
-
-I've added drop in replacement functions: notice, info, and
-debug. I've replaced all instances of log and loge with info.
-
-If you use notice, your message will always be sent to standard error.
-If you use info, it will be sent to standard error if the env variable
-`MONKEYSPHERE_OUTPUT_QUIET` is set to off (it is off by default). If
-you use debug, it will be sent to standard error only if
-`MONKEYSPHERE_OUTPUT_DEBUG` is set to on (it's off by default).
-
-Lastly, in monkeysphere-ssh-proxycommand, I've set
-`MONKEYSPHERE_QUIET_MODE` to on by default.
-
-So the result is: when using monkeysphere-ssh-proxycommand, you will
-not get any output unless you set `MONEKYSPHERE_OUTPUT_QUIET` to off
-or `MONKEYSPHERE_OUTPUT_DEBUG` to on. All other commands should work
-exactly like they did in the past.
-
-And... we can go through the code and change calls to the info
-function to either notice (if we want them to be sent regardless of
-the `QUIET` variable) or debug (if we want it only sent if `DEBUG` is
-set).
-
-I'm open to suggestions, problems, etc :).
-
--- SJJ
-
-------
-
-Hey, your Royal Highness. I do think it's good that I look over these
-changes, because there are definitely some stuff (ie. key processing)
-that requires that things go to stderr and definitely not to stdout.
-I can see that if that were changed, it's possible that things could
-go wrong (ie. cause a `known_hosts` file to get truncated maybe).
-
-I have to say that I'm still not sure I totally see why it's necessary
-to implement such nuanced output switches. All of the stuff you were
-worried about when you reported this bug, and all the stuff that
-starts with "ms:", goes to stderr. If you didn't want to see it, can
-you not just redirect stderr to /dev/null?
-
-For what it's worth, I'm not sure *I* can ever imagine *not* wanting
-to see that stuff, since it effectively reports on whether the host
-you're connecting to is acceptable or not. I feel like I would always
-want to see that. I guess that's neither here nor there, though,
-cause if a user thinks it would be a good switch to have, and it's not
-too difficult to implement (as this is), then it's worth implementing.
-
-I think before we really start trying to tackle this, though, we
-should outline what is the behavior we ultimately want. What output
-do we want to go to stdout, and do we want to be able to turn that off
-or on? What output do we want to go to stderr, and do we want to be
-able to turn that off or on? At the moment, most output is really
-just info for the user, which is why I was sending it all to stderr.
-Should all output then just go to stderr, with a switch to either turn
-it off or on?
-
-I should point out that we're sort of hitting a bit of a bash
-limitation here. Some monkeysphere internal functions pass info on to
-other stuff via stdout, but also need to report stuff to the user as
-well, which means this stuff can only be passed to the user via
-stderr.
-
-In any event, I just want to outline a straightforward policy about
-output so we can know how to best handle it.
-
--- Big Jimmy.
-
------
-
-I think it's important to be able to suppress "normal operation,
-everything is fine" messages *without* directing stderr to
-`/dev/null`. This is the normal state of UNIX-style tools, especially
-tools like SSH which are used as piece of a larger toolchain. If
-every tool in a toolchain emitted some output during successful
-operation, many scripts would be hopeless seas of noise, as it's not
-unusual for even a simple backup script to make use of a half-dozen
-separate tools.
-
-What you really want is to see some output from when a tool knows
-something is wrong. With the proxycommand, the job of complaining
-will often be left up to `ssh` itself, after `~/.ssh/known_hosts` has
-been appropriately modified. But sometimes, the proxycommand itself
-will fail, and if you've already directed stderr to `/dev/null` you
-won't get any reasonable information about the failure at the time it
-happens.
-
-As for the interface to adjust the verbosity, HRH SJJ's current
-proposal with a large number of environment variables seems confusing
-and overly-complex to me.
-
-i think we should follow OpenSSH's lead (since all monkeysphere users
-are likely to be somewhat familiar with it) and use a single variable
-that is set to a level. For example, see `LogLevel` in
-`ssh_config(5)`. It should probably default to `INFO`, same as
-`/usr/bin/ssh`. If there was a way to extract this value from the
-user's SSH configuration/invocation itself and adopt it in the
-ProxyCommand, that would be even better, but i don't think that's a
-possibility with OpenSSH 5.1p1 at this point.
-
-Also, i agree with HRH SJJ that the distinction in the monkeysphere
-source between `log` and `loge` is unclear, and one of them should be
-dropped (or they should be better-documented in `/src/common`).
-
- --dkg
-
-----
-
-Thanks Big Jimmy and dkg all for the good feedback.
-
-I think you're right Big Jimmy about the sterr/stout. I may have
-accidentally output to stout instead of sterr. In any event - I think
-all of the logging should go to sterr to avoid that.
-
-Here's a proposed fix based on both of your responses - it tries to make
-my changes a bit simpler and more consistent with ssh behavior:
-
- * Use on environmental variable: `MONKEYSPHERE_LOG_LEVEL` that can be set
- to `ERROR` or `INFO`, with the default being `INFO`.
- `monkeysphere-ssh-proxycommand`, however, will set the
- `MONKEYSPHERE_LOG_LEVEL` to `ERROR` unless the user overrides that setting.
-
- * Use two functions for reporting messages to the user via sterr that
- will replace the existing log/loge functions: info (for outputting
- "normal operation, everything's fine" messages) and error (for
- outputting messages that indicate a problem that we think a user should
- know about). Reporting a message to the user with the info function
- will only be sent if the `MONKEYSPHERE_LOG_LEVEL` setting is `INFO`.
- Reporting a message to the user with the error function will always be
- output regardless of the `MONKEYSPHERE_LOG_LEVEL` value.
-
- * Go through the code and, for each use of the current log/loge
- function, determine if they should be replaced with info or error
- depending on how critical we think the message is.
-
-How does that sound?
-
- --Sir Jam Jam
-
------
-
-Sir Jam Jam's proposal sounds good to me, but why make it two separate
-functions? Given the number of log levels used by OpenSSH, i'd prefer
-to make a single function that takes two arguments: the first argument
-is the level of the log, and the second argument is the data to be
-logged itself. So you'd say:
-
- log error "This is really terrible and broken!"
- log info "The fuzzy bunny just smiled at you and nodded."
-
-Is that a reasonable amendment? It seems like it will make it easier
-to add more levels if we find we need them, and it makes it easy to
-find every single log message in the source code at the same time.
-
- --dkg
-
------
-
-I just implemented the proposal (incorporating dkg's suggestion about
-only having one function). It's committed in my quiet-mode branch (still
-not merged with master - pending review).
-
-Thanks for all the feedback!
-
--- SJJ
-
-----
-
-Ok, this plans makes sense. I'll merge SJJ's patches as soon as I get
-the chance.
-
--- BJ
-
-----
-
-I implemented a variant of SJJ's proposed changes in
-bb2427c28bf40179c4881b22c23f23f9bea78f55 (0.12 pre). I tried to make
-it so that we could more easily expand the number of levels if need
-be. I made a first pass at specifying which output is what priority,
-but folks should please speak up if they think the priority of any
-particular output should be changed.
-
-I'll leave the bug open for a bit until it get more tested and 0.12
-gets pushed out.
-
--- BJ
-
----
-
-I think this is [[/bugs/done]] as of version 0.12-1.
projects / monkeysphere.git / blobdiff