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.
+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
(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.
+ * 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 :).
+ 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:
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!).
+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.
+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).
+`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.
+`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.
+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).
+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
+-- 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