#144 Alt-L sends nothing on SSH boards that run their own login

[Andy Alt]

Drafted by Claude (Opus 5)

SyncTERM skips the stored user name and password when the connection type is SSH, sending only the sysop password if one is set. That has been the behavior at least as far back as 1.8, and the reasoning holds wherever the SSH server and the BBS are one program. Synchronet authenticates against its own user database, so the SSH login is the BBS login, and sending the credentials a second time would type them into whichever screen the user landed on.

A board behind a generic SSH server works differently. shsbbs.net answers with an SSH-2.0-Go version string and hands the session to the BBS as a plain terminal, so the board runs its own login prompt. Alt-L is inert there, and no other key sends the stored credentials.

Two shapes seem possible. Which is preferred?

• A per-entry option in the dialing directory, named after the board's behavior rather than the key. The SSH block already carries "Accept Early Data" and "Allow AES128-CBC" for server quirks, so it would sit alongside those. Default off, leaving existing entries unchanged.
• Removing the SSH exclusion, so Alt-L always sends. There is then no option to name or explain, and the key does the same thing on every connection type. The cost is that on a board which logged the user in automatically, Alt-L would type the password into whatever prompt is showing.

Andy has a working per-entry implementation locally, if that turns out to be the preferred shape.

Two things were not verified: whether the Go front end checks the supplied credentials at all, or accepts anything and leaves authentication to the board; and which BBS software sits behind it.

[Stephen James Hurd]

If you want a password to be sent via Alt-L on SSH connections, enter a value in the Sysop Password field.

It's not a matter of the SSH server and the BBS being one program, it's a matter of SSH authentication being actual authentication.

Neither of those two shapes are acceptable for the default scripts included with SyncTERM especially the last one.

That said, with current SyncTERM builds, you can load custom scripts and have a custom login script for systems that don't use standard mechanisms. This is the supported extension point for "I want to send arbitrary text at arbitrary times".

[Stephen James Hurd]

Ticket moved from /p/syncterm/tickets/276/

Can't be converted:

• _output_type: X11
• _found_in_version: 1.10a