Re: Minor comments on draft-ietf-secsh-filexfer-04

[Jacob Nevins <jacobn+secsh%chiark.greenend.org.uk@localhost>]

Joseph Galbraith writes:
> [Jacob Nevins:]
> > Section 6.11 "Canonicalizing the Server-Side Path Name" (SSH_FXP_REALPATH):
> > It's not too clear how much of the path needs to exist at the time
> > REALPATH is invoked. This may cause interoperability problems.
> > [snip]
> 
> This one is a little bit trickier-- realpath is often implemented
> using the unix library function of the same name, which, I believe,
> fails if the path doesn't exist.

That's how POSIX appears to define it.
<http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/functions/realpath.html>

However, I've seen indication that some BSD-based realpath()s don't
fail in this case.

I don't see any big issue with filexfer defining it the same way as
POSIX.

The only concern is whether clients would be broken by this decision.
I know PSFTP/PSCP wouldn't; sounds like your client wouldn't; any
others?