Copyright (c) 2000 Ken Yap

ssh is a simple frontend for sshdos that gives you the config file
functionality of the Unix ssh. This functionality could be put into
sshdos but it would make the size of the executable larger. All that is
really needed is a program to read in the command line flags, then parse
a config file, make some subsitutions and finally exec sshdos.

For example, say the config file ssh.cfg contains this:

Host sourceforge
	Hostname project.sourceforge.net
	User programmer
	Cipher blowfish
	Term linux

then you can run ssh like this:

	ssh sourceforge

and it will call sshdos like this:

	sshdos -c blowfish -t linux programmer project.sourceforge.net

Like the Unix ssh, it reads options in this order: command line options,
user config file, and finally system config file. The first setting of
an option is the one that takes effect. Wildcards are allowed for the
Host lines, just like the Unix version.  Therefore the options should be
arranged from the most specific to the least specific.  So in the
previous example, we could override the cipher and user by

	ssh -c 3des -l writer sourceforge

and

	sshdos -c 3des writer project.sourceforge.net

is what gets executed.

The disadvantage of this approach is that if sshdos gets some new
options, then ssh has to be taught about them.

(I have made provision for the code to be a frontend for scp later. :-)

Ken Yap
ken_yap@xoommail.com
August 2000