SSH alternative to Cygwin

[dylanmei]

Regarding issue #3 comment by @sneal: In fact I'd rather not install Cygwin if I could.

I am having some success using OpenSSH for Windows 5.3 from coming from Chocolatey and also the 6.2 from mls-software.

The initial ssh handshake and scp operation to copy over .vbox_version work great but any subsequent scp operations blow up. I'm hoping it's something I can fix from the sshd configuration side, but it's strange how I can ssh and scp manually just fine but packer can't do more than one run against it. Investigation ongoing....

If there are similar ideas out there, I'd like to hear about it before I go too far down the rabbit hole.

[StefanScherer]

I have tried to use FreeSSHD instead of Cygwin with Packer, but it just connects and disconnects. That is what I can see in FreeSSHD.log.
You might have a look at my configuration at https://github.com/StefanScherer/basebox-packer/tree/master/template/stefan-win7x64-freesshd

[dylanmei]

Here is output from Packer with OpenSSHd for Windows 5.3.
https://gist.github.com/dylanmei/6831339

@StefanScherer Thanks for pointing me to freeSSHD. What packer output are you getting with this?

[StefanScherer]

@dylanmei Thanks for the hint with the log file. I forgot about that. The packer log file says following error:
handshake error: handshake failed: ssh: no common algorithms
Here is a list of supported algorithms in freeSSHD:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18998473/failed-to-dial-handshake-failed-ssh-no-common-algorithms-error-in-ssh-client

So, freeSSHD seems to be a dead end. I will stop my investigations here.
I do not need ssh after creating the basebox, I want to use vagrant-windows with winrm. So how about a removal script that removes Cygwin SSHD or any other sshd from the windows box with packer's shutdown_command?

[joefitzgerald]

@StefanScherer it would be fairly trivial to create a removal script. I'll take a look at doing that tomorrow, but please note that it will only run on first boot of the resulting box. I.e. you'll be distributing boxes with Cygwin / SSHd, but they will not be available once the box starts up for the first time.

[dylanmei]

Because packer doesn't need SSH anymore once shutdown_command is issued, there's no reason why shutdown_command = "cmd /c my-shutdown.bat" can't run a script that tears down Cygwin/OpenSSH.

Forgot to add, the reason I'm investing so much time in OpenSSH 6.2 package is that Cygwin recently broke their silent installer. http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2013-10/msg00006.html. Even if they fix it soon, it's left me with a bad taste.

Shifting to the smaller OpenSSH 6.2 is going really well although I'm having to re-write our .sh provisioning files as .bat since the there's not as much unix-y stuff here.

[joefitzgerald]

@dylanmei Good point - and makes sense. Excited to see where you get to on the conversion to .bat + OpenSSH.

[StefanScherer]

I like the idea of removing cygwin before shutting down the VM. I have tried it in a vagrant box, my first try of a simple bat script is here https://gist.github.com/StefanScherer/6874808
I stop sshd as late as possible, but perhaps this is not needed, because packer waits until VM is shut down and so the SSH connection could be cut off earlier.
Is there a more clean way to uninstall cygwin?

[joefitzgerald]

@StefanScherer http://cygwin.com/faq/faq.html#faq.setup.uninstall-all Looks like it needs to be done manually, and you've got most of the steps. Why not just do a sleep at the start of the script to give packer time to disconnect from ssh? Then you can remove the extra rmdir /s /q cygwin step prior to shutting down sshd.

The missing link is running the batch script and terminating immediately (i.e. we don't want to do a cmd /c - we probably want to use start) in the shutdown script.

[StefanScherer]

@joefitzgerald Yes, starting the command into the background is a good idea. I have tried it in my win7 basebox and committed my working version into https://github.com/StefanScherer/basebox-packer/tree/master/template/stefan-win7x64.
I have replace the shutdown command to call the batch script and added the batch script to the floppy.
Short before the VM shutted down, the desktop icon of cygwin disappeared. A good sign.

[joefitzgerald]

@dylanmei Where'd you get to with the switch to OpenSSH - can I help? Would love to switch as soon as possible.

[dylanmei]

Actually I'm very close. I've run the gauntlet on 2012 vmware/virtualbox and am just now validating 2008 r2 on virtualbox.

• Packer 3.9 seems to have an issue with including our Vagrantfiles in the box, so I had to go back to 3.7 and lost some small features (virtualbox -> guest_additions_attatch).
• SSH is left on the box but it will be a no-brainer to remove it using the shutdown trick.
• I haven't yet checked that I can use puppet/chef provisioner once they are installed.
• We "should" be able to use powershell from the shell provider but can't get it to upload ps1 files (?!)

I can make a pull req on this now if you are interested in smoking out any issues?
https://github.com/dylanmei/packer-windows/tree/using_openssh

[joefitzgerald]

Yes, please - happy to take a look over a PR, and fix anything that comes up. I'm stubborn so I'll try to dig more with packer 3.9, also. :)

[dylanmei]

Being stubborn is a requirement to working on this stuff ;)