[Bitpim-devel] Update on BitFling

[Roger B. <ro...@ro...>]

After a humunguous amount of effort, I have given up trying to
use XML-RPC over HTTP over SSL using the Python standard library
and M2Crypto.  Although I mostly had them playing together, it
was horrid.

The good news is that I have figured out how to do it using
XML-RPC over SSH, and will be using the paramiko library
(pure Python implementation of SSH).  My prototype code has
worked well.  It also has the connection oriented semantics
I wanted, and was trying to get with HTTP/1.1 keepalives.

I will be using a private copy of Paramiko initially.  This
is because the standard version doesn't support Python 2.2
as needed on Redhat.  Paramiko also depends on pycrypto
(which is a binary package).

The code I commit over the next few days may or may not
cause issues if you don't have stuff installed.  Here is
what you should do:

 - Double-check that Paramiko is okay to use (it is LGPL)
   (ie would you be happy exposing it to the open Internet?)

 - Install pycrypto package from 
   http://www.amk.ca/python/code/crypto.html

   On Linux and Mac:

     $ python setup.py install

   On Windows (hard way):

     - Install VC++6 or MinGW
     > python setup.py build --compiler=mingw32 bdist_wininst
     - The package is in the dist directory (--compiler not needed
       for VC++6)

   On Windows (easy way):

     - There is one I prepared earlier at
 http://sf.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=75211&package_id=113804

 - If using Python earlier than 2.3 (eg on Redhat), install the
   logging package.  You can copy it from a Python 2.3 install
   or grab it from the above link.  I suggest extracting the
   zip into the site-packages directory in Python eg
   /usr/lib/python2.2/site-packages

You don't need to do anything yet until stuff starts falling over
due to lack of these.

If any Windows guru is looking for a small project, I would like
a standalone binary of ssh-keygen from OpenSSH (I can use one
from Cygwin, but would prefer something smaller and needing less
DLLs).

If there is any crypto guru out there, I would be ever happier
with code that generates SSH2 DSA keys (that is all I need
ssh-keygen for).  I would recommend contributing it to paramiko.

Roger