autossh defaults to using /usr/bin/ssh even with macports ssh installed

[chiggsy@…]

Autossh will autostart ssh on the monitor port, given by the -M option.

When a user has macports ssh installed, Autossh should use that preferentially over /usr/bin/ssh, which is currently the default.

To duplicate:

• Install ssh via ports
• Install autossh via ports

autossh -M some_port user@host

In a different local terminal owned by the same user

ps

/usr/bin/ssh will be seen.

Workaround is to use the AUTOSSH_PATH, but the default should be macports.

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Replying to chiggsy@…:

When a user has macports ssh installed, Autossh should use that preferentially over /usr/bin/ssh, which is currently the default.

Daniel and Rainer raised some objections to this in ​the mailing list discussion that prompted the filing of this ticket.

[chiggsy@…]

Daniel and Rainer raised some objections to this in ​the mailing list discussion that prompted the filing of this ticket.

I can check that discussion but the fact remains that autossh, as currently offered by macports, defaults to an ssh program outside of the macports tree. /usr/bin/ssh looks to /etc for it's configuration, not /opt/local/etc. That's really an issue: You install openssh, you configure it, in /opt/local/etc , since after all, macports is advertised to only look in /opt/local, you run it autossh, and instead of using the updated, patched version of openssh you most likely installed openssh to get, you are using whatever version Apple bothered to release. I simply need to bring up the 2 year delay in patching BIND, or the recent drive by PDF bug that made jailbreaking so easy, to raise valid concerns about commercial vendors patching speed.

IMO ssh is a key tool, and if nothing else, it should be advertised that macports will , oddly , and silently, default to an unexpected program, while using the most standard way to achieve a secure shell. All the man pages for the programs involved are from /opt/local . What clue would I have that /usr/bin/ssh would be run?

My mistake, strings /opt/local/bin/autossh shows /usr/bin/ssh.

Any user, reading the documentation, would assume that /opt/local was the default tree. I maintain that

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

Variant added in r85111. The path to ssh is fixed at build time and can't be changed at runtime. If you would like that feature added, ask upstream.