Re: SFTP v6?

[nisse%lysator.liu.se@localhost (Niels Möller)]

Joseph Galbraith <galb-list%vandyke.com@localhost> writes:

> - Add 'versions' extension to allow server to express non-contigous
>    set of supported versions to client, and 'version' extension
>    from client-to-server for server to pick one.

As I said before, I really don't think this is the right way to go.

I can accept a "fancy version negotiation"-extension only if it is
specified in such a way that implementations that don't care about
disjunct version intervals (e.g. the common case of an implementation
supporting only version x, or supporting only version x and version
x+1) don't need to implement or otherwise care about the extension.

I view the fancy-version-negotioation thing only as a temporary kludge
needed for the unfortunate version 3 -> version 6+ upgrade. It will be
totally unneeded bloat and uglyness once this is over and the protocol
specification stabilizes. (I don't see any value whatsoever in fancy
version negotiation in the longer run. Simply advertising the highest
supported version number provides for adequate backwards compatibility
for everybody else's protocols, and I think it really ought to work
also for sftp).

And I don't think it is appropriate at all to consider things like
round-trip optimization for a temoprary kludge. Just solve the problem
at hand in a simple a way as possible. Both the problem and the
solution will be forgotten a few years from now.

Regards,
/Niels