Create the long-awaited console.c, and move the common routines out

of scp.c, psftp.c and plink.c into it. Additionally, add `batch
mode', in which all the interactive prompts (bad host key, log file
exists, insecure cipher, password prompt) are disabled and safe
responses are assumed. (The idea being that if you run PSCP, for
example, in a cron job then you'd probably rather it failed and
exited instead of leaving the cron job wedged while it waits for
user input that will never arrive.)

[originally from svn r1525]

doc/plink.but

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-\versionid $Id: plink.but,v 1.12 2001/12/06 20:05:39 simon Exp $
+\versionid $Id: plink.but,v 1.13 2001/12/31 16:15:19 simon Exp $
 
 \C{plink} Using the command-line connection tool Plink
 
@@ -151,6 +151,9 @@ details:
 Then you can set up other programs to run this Plink command and
 talk to it as if it were a process on the server machine.
 
+You may also find it useful to use the \c{-batch} command-line
+option; see \k{plink-usage-options-batch}.
+
 \S{plink-usage-options} Options
 
 This section describes the command line options that Plink accepts.
@@ -207,6 +210,18 @@ As described in \k{plink-usage-batch}, you can specify the user name
 to log in as on the remote server using the \c{-l} option. For
 example, \c{plink login.example.com -l fred}.
 
+\S2{plink-usage-options-batch}\c{-batch} avoid interactive prompts
+
+If you use the \c{-batch} option, Plink will never give an
+interactive prompt while establishing the connection. If the
+server's host key is invalid, for example (see \k{gs-hostkey}), then
+the connection will simply be abandoned instead of asking you what
+to do next.
+
+This may help Plink's behaviour when it is used in automated
+scripts: using \c{-batch}, if something goes wrong at connection
+time, the batch job will fail rather than hang.
+
 \S2{plink-usage-options-cmdfile} \c{-m filename} read command from a
 file
 

doc/pscp.but

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-\versionid $Id: pscp.but,v 1.19 2001/12/14 12:19:14 simon Exp $
+\versionid $Id: pscp.but,v 1.20 2001/12/31 16:15:19 simon Exp $
 
 \#FIXME: Need examples
 
@@ -230,6 +230,18 @@ Since specifying passwords in scripts is a bad idea for security
 reasons, you might want instead to consider using public-key
 authentication; see \k{pscp-pubkey}.
 
+\S2{pscp-usage-options-batch}\c{-batch} avoid interactive prompts
+
+If you use the \c{-batch} option, PSCP will never give an
+interactive prompt while establishing the connection. If the
+server's host key is invalid, for example (see \k{gs-hostkey}), then
+the connection will simply be abandoned instead of asking you what
+to do next.
+
+This may help PSCP's behaviour when it is used in automated
+scripts: using \c{-batch}, if something goes wrong at connection
+time, the batch job will fail rather than hang.
+
 \S{pscp-retval} Return value
 
 PSCP returns an \cw{ERRORLEVEL} of zero (success) only if the files

doc/psftp.but

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-\versionid $Id: psftp.but,v 1.3 2001/12/16 13:33:04 simon Exp $
+\versionid $Id: psftp.but,v 1.4 2001/12/31 16:15:19 simon Exp $
 
 \C{psftp} Using PSFTP to transfer files securely
 
@@ -153,6 +153,18 @@ processing even if a command fails to complete successfully.
 You might want this to happen if you wanted to delete a file and
 didn't care if it was already not present, for example.
 
+\S{psftp-usage-options-batch}\c{-batch}: avoid interactive prompts
+
+If you use the \c{-batch} option, PSFTP will never give an
+interactive prompt while establishing the connection. If the
+server's host key is invalid, for example (see \k{gs-hostkey}), then
+the connection will simply be abandoned instead of asking you what
+to do next.
+
+This may help PSFTP's behaviour when it is used in automated
+scripts: using \c{-batch}, if something goes wrong at connection
+time, the batch job will fail rather than hang.
+
 \H{psftp-commands} Running PSFTP
 
 Once you have started your PSFTP session, you will see a \c{psftp>}