Re: Why proxies?

[Kirk Strauser]

On Wednesday 30 August 2006 9:57 am, Michael Albinus wrote:

> It depends on how you use Tramp for multi-hops. If you have always the
> same paths to hop, proxies are better because they are much shorter to
> type once they are set up. And it is my impression that _this_ kind of
> use is the majority (but maybe I'm wrong).

That's fair enough, and I could see how they'd be more convenient for that 
case.  It just seems to strongly pessimize uncommon usages.

> But I see your point: applying multi-hop on the fly is worse
> now. Maybe we can make a compromise: there is a request for supporting
> new Tramp users entering remote file names step by step,
> interactively.

That could be useful.

Another alternative that would fix 99% of the problems I have would be to 
find a way to allow the proxy value to incorporate parts of the host (and 
maybe user) values.  For example, I want to write a ruleset like:

(add-to-list 'tramp-default-proxies-alist
   '(".my.domain" nil "/ssh:address@hidden:"))
(add-to-list 'tramp-default-proxies-alist
   '(nil "kirk" nil))

so that "/sudo:address@hidden" will first ssh to randomhost, 
then use sudo to change users.  From what I can tell, I currently have to 
write a rule for each and every machine before I can connect to it for the 
first time.  Would something like that be workable?
-- 
Kirk Strauser
The Day Companies