I have the binary of darcs 1.0.8 for win32, using putty as an SSH  
client. When trying to 'darcs get' a remote SSH repository, it hangs.  
'darcs initialise' then 'darcs pull' with the same repository path  
works perfectly.

C:\Documents and Settings\torne\Desktop\test>darcs get -v  
whitefang.wolfpuppy.org.uk:sat
plink: unknown option "-O"
darcsf98434               |          0 kB |   0.9 kB/s | ETA: 00:00:00 | 100%
Getting the inventory...
darcs63a0fd               |          0 kB |   0.4 kB/s | ETA: 00:00:00 | 100%
Copying patches...

The inventory copies ok (darcs changes shows the change history) but  
no patches are ever copied across. The repository is tiny, only half a  
dozen patches, and it worked fine when I pulled the same changes into  
an existing empty repository.

On Sun, Oct 29, 2006 at 02:05:04 +0000, Torne Wuff wrote:
> The inventory copies ok (darcs changes shows the change history) but  
> no patches are ever copied across. The repository is tiny, only half a  
> dozen patches, and it worked fine when I pulled the same changes into  
> an existing empty repository.

Thanks for the bug report.  The difference between darcs get and darcs
pull is that darcs get uses sftp with a batch command, whereas darcs
pull performs scp for each patch you select.  That this works with darcs
pull and not darcs get means that our use of sftp is somewhat broken
with Putty.

The call to sftp looks something like this
  sftp -b /foo/bar/_darcs/patches/darcsbBDUXa me@the.server.blah:

I suspect that this has something to do with sftp communicating with
the user to get the password.

Sorry for this.  Part of the problem is that we don't have very
systematic ssh testing.  It's clear to me that we should aim to support
both OpenSSH and Putty given the large number of Windows users out
there.  I'll work on this on my spare time.  I am trying to improve the
situation with some scripts.

Quoting Eric Kow <bugs@darcs.net>:
> The call to sftp looks something like this
>   sftp -b /foo/bar/_darcs/patches/darcsbBDUXa me@the.server.blah:

psftp is fine with that syntax in abstract, so perhaps the batch  
commands are what's upsetting it?

> I suspect that this has something to do with sftp communicating with
> the user to get the password.

I don't think so, since I use a key agent and thus it doesn't have to  
talk to me. sftp'ing from the command line Just Works without  
prompting, including with a trivial batch script.

> Sorry for this.  Part of the problem is that we don't have very
> systematic ssh testing.  It's clear to me that we should aim to support
> both OpenSSH and Putty given the large number of Windows users out
> there.  I'll work on this on my spare time.  I am trying to improve the
> situation with some scripts.

Good to hear. I've not tried it with OpenSSH, but doing so would  
require me to run a different key agent that isn't compatible with my  
normal SSH usage, so PuTTY is highly desirable ;)

On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 21:56:43 +0000, Torne Wuff wrote:
> psftp is fine with that syntax in abstract, so perhaps the batch  
> commands are what's upsetting it?

Nope.  I tried running it by hand with a batch file from darcs and it
was quite happy.

> I don't think so, since I use a key agent and thus it doesn't have to  
> talk to me.

Ah.  That's an interesting data point to consider.

Anyway, more on this (possibly much) later.

Hi Torne, I've recently stumbled upon some notes I had written about SSH around
the time of your bug report.
  http://wiki.darcs.net/DarcsWiki/SSHNotes

Do you think the parts about SSH + pageant are relevant?  Is that the key agent
in question?  Thanks!

On Tue, Jul 31 07 at  8:28:43AM -0000, Eric Kow wrote:
> Hi Torne, I've recently stumbled upon some notes I had written about SSH around
> the time of your bug report.
>   http://wiki.darcs.net/DarcsWiki/SSHNotes
> 
> Do you think the parts about SSH + pageant are relevant?  Is that the key agent
> in question?  Thanks!

Yes, I'm using pageant, but the problem I have doesn't seem to be
related to what you have there :)

torne, 

Are you able to test again, using one of the Darcs2 binaries available for
Windows, linked to from this page? 

http://wiki.darcs.net/index.html/DarcsTwo

There is a new "--debug-verbose" option which should hopefully provide you more
detail about what's going on (if there is still a problem). 

  Mark

I should also mention that if you can upgrade darcs on both client and server to
the absolute latest darcs-unstable, darcs should avoid use of sftp at all, which
ought to fix this problem, and make ssh faster to boot.  Of course, this'll only
work if you can compile darcs for windows.

David

Folks, I'm going to consider this one resolved, thanks to the new darcs
transfer-mode.

Please open a new ticket if you still have trouble with darcs-2 on both client
and server.