These will typically be implemented by objects that are both a Backend
*and* a Plug, and the two methods will deliver the same results to any
caller, regardless of which facet of the object is known to that
caller.
Their purpose is to deliver a user-oriented natural-language
description of what network connection the object is handling, so that
it can appear in diagnostic messages.
The messages I specifically have in mind are going to appear in cases
where proxies require interactive authentication: when PuTTY prompts
interactively for a password, it will need to explain which *thing*
it's asking for the password for, and these descriptions are what it
will use to describe the thing in question.
Each backend is allowed to compose these messages however it thinks
best. In all cases at present, the description string is constructed
by the new centralised default_description() function, which takes a
host name and port number and combines them with the backend's display
name. But the SSH backend does things a bit differently, because it
uses the _logical_ host name (the one that goes with the SSH host key)
rather than the physical destination of the network connection. That
seems more appropriate when the question it's really helping the user
to answer is "What host am I supposed to be entering the password for?"
In this commit, no clients of the new methods are introduced. I have a
draft implementation of actually using it for the purpose I describe
above, but it needs polishing.
This is the README for PuTTY, a free Windows and Unix Telnet and SSH
client.
PuTTY is built using CMake <https://cmake.org/>. To compile in the
simplest way (on any of Linux, Windows or Mac), run these commands in
the source directory:
cmake .
cmake --build .
Documentation (in various formats including Windows Help and Unix
`man' pages) is built from the Halibut (`.but') files in the `doc'
subdirectory using `doc/Makefile'. If you aren't using one of our
source snapshots, you'll need to do this yourself. Halibut can be
found at <https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/halibut/>.
The PuTTY home web site is
https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
If you want to send bug reports or feature requests, please read the
Feedback section of the web site before doing so. Sending one-line
reports saying `it doesn't work' will waste your time as much as
ours.
See the file LICENCE for the licence conditions.
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