Bug 1660

Summary: ssh makes use of a shell which fails causing vista to open a failed program window
Product: Portable OpenSSH Reporter: Brian McConkey <mcconkeyb>
Component: sshAssignee: Assigned to nobody <unassigned-bugs>
Status: CLOSED WORKSFORME    
Severity: normal CC: djm
Priority: P2    
Version: 5.1p1   
Hardware: ix86   
OS: Cygwin on NT/2k/Win7-11   

Description Brian McConkey 2009-10-16 08:17:50 AEDT 
I am running ssh in a cygwin shell in windows vista. When I use the X11 forwarding feature (either -x or -Y) it appears that ssh opens another shell using sh.exe and uses this shell to run the xauth.exe program. When this program returns it appears to be some type of a failed condtion (not sure just assuming here). Then the sh.exe program stops and closes. This causes vista to generate a "program has stopped working" window and prompt. The same thing happens under XP,  but XP does not create a user prompt, but instead just lets the sh.exe program die unannounced. 

I am hoping that someone can change the way ssh deals with the closing of the sh.exe shell to stop the windows user prompt from occuring. 

I have spent at least 12 hours searching for solutions to this problem and have seen it reported several times, without a solution provided (well at least not a useful solution). Just a lot of finger pointing between cygwin, windows, and openssh.
Comment 1 Damien Miller 2009-10-21 21:41:49 AEDT 
Sorry, but the bug tracking system is not a user support forum. I suggest asking for help on one of the newsgroups or mailing lists that exist to support Cygwin first. Failing that, you might want to try on one of the SSH or OpenSSH mailing lists.
Comment 2 Brian McConkey 2009-10-22 09:14:52 AEDT 
(In reply to comment #1)
> Sorry, but the bug tracking system is not a user support forum. I
> suggest asking for help on one of the newsgroups or mailing lists that
> exist to support Cygwin first. Failing that, you might want to try on
> one of the SSH or OpenSSH mailing lists.

Ahh. If this is not a bug, then what should it be called? As for the support forms, I have already tried that, as I described above.
Comment 3 Damien Miller 2009-10-22 11:33:28 AEDT 
It sounds like a Windows/Cygwin configuration issue to me. Did you ask anyone on a Cygwin mailing list? If they can unambiguously tell us that we are invoking the shell incorrectly then we can treat it as a bug.
Comment 4 Damien Miller 2010-04-16 15:49:52 AEST 
Mass move of bugs RESOLVED->CLOSED following the release of openssh-5.5p1