Quick and dirty configuration notes to run wincvs with openssh and authentication

First, read the manual, instructions, releases notes, web pages, addenda of your software. Make sure you've not forgotten to read anything on the web. If you find that you can't configure wincvs to work correctly with openssh, then follow the next steps.
I'm not responsible for any damage caused to your configuration, you know what you do, and all these kind of warnings (but if you're reading this, this is probably because you are desperate ;-).
I've put these instructions here because it took me a lot of time to correctly configure wincvs to run with openssh and cvsnt, and it seems that it takes a lot of time to a lot of people as well, and we have certainly better things to do than wasting time in configuring the software for hours (unless we're payed to do so ;-).

make sure you've got a version 1.3 of wincvs (1.3.8.1 used here)
make sure you've got the last version of openssh server (3.4-2 used here)
I've tried to use the 1.11.1.3 build 57h version of cvs.exe bundled with CVSNT (build 57h) instead of 1.11.1.3 build 57a bundled with wincvs 1.3.8. It did not work, so keep 57a unless you know what you do.
All these programs (servers and clients) are running on a Windows XP Pro SP1 box.

• build the keys with the ssh-keygen tool bundled with openssh, put the public key in the authorized file, and the private key where you want (file is d:\privkey in our example)
• test your openssh configuration in a command-line window first. Use the ssh.exe bundled with openssh. Enable debug mode to see what happens. You should login without password-prompting
• configure wincvs like this (of course, put your real conf instead of this example)
  • authentication : ssh
    path : /CVSROOT
    host address : 123.123.123.123
    user name : user
    
    that builds a CVSROOT like :
    user@123.123.123.123:/CVSROOT
    
  • go to the settings for ssh and select If ssh is not in the PATH.
    Enter the complete windows path to your ssh.exe with the options (yes put them there) and particularly the path to your private key with forward slashes, and eventually the port (if you did not put it in the services file), if not the default one. Example :
    C :\Program Files\NetworkSimplicity\ssh\ssh.exe -p 123 -i d:/privkey
    click OK, and another OK.

That should work.
If not verify that your openssh configuration contains the following (it may contain other lines not shown) :

   Protocol 1,2
   Port 123

   PasswordAuthentication no
   IgnoreRhosts yes
   IgnoreUserKnownHosts yes
   RhostsAuthentication no
   RhostsRSAAuthentication no
   RSAAuthentication yes
   StrictModes no
 

comments, that does not work, that works : argabalala@yahoo.fr

useful links

http://www.openssh.org/
http://www.networksimplicity.com/openssh/
http://www.cvsgui.org/
http://www.cvsnt.org/

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