I am working on a solution to simulate a bunch of Network Elements,
each listening with its own IP address. Part of the test plan has
the far end using sftp to transfer a file to each simulated NE.
The far end thinks it's talking to different NEs so it uses the
same dir and name as the destination of its transfers. In our
simulation we'd like to initiate multiple transfers at the same
time but of course there's only one file system on the box where
the simulator runs. Trouble.

I was thinking of using the IP address to distinguish incoming files.
I know that ~/.ssh/rc can use the value of SSH_CONNECTION to find
out what IP address the ssh client connected to, but .ssh/rc doesn't
seem to run when sftp is the client. Besides, I don't see that I
can pass a directory to sftp-server anyway.

Has anyone had to do anything like this before? I'd be grateful
for your suggestions. Is there any hope of a solution quicker than
hacking the sftp-sever code itself?

Thanks,
Steve

"Steve Elkins" <sgelkins@gmail.com> writes:

> I am working on a solution to simulate a bunch of Network Elements,
> each listening with its own IP address. Part of the test plan has
> the far end using sftp to transfer a file to each simulated NE.
> The far end thinks it's talking to different NEs so it uses the
> same dir and name as the destination of its transfers. In our
> simulation we'd like to initiate multiple transfers at the same
> time but of course there's only one file system on the box where
> the simulator runs. Trouble.
>
> I was thinking of using the IP address to distinguish incoming files.
> I know that ~/.ssh/rc can use the value of SSH_CONNECTION to find
> out what IP address the ssh client connected to, but .ssh/rc doesn't
> seem to run when sftp is the client. Besides, I don't see that I
> can pass a directory to sftp-server anyway.
>
> Has anyone had to do anything like this before? I'd be grateful
> for your suggestions. Is there any hope of a solution quicker than
> hacking the sftp-sever code itself?


Are virtual appliances available for these network elements as part of
the free vmware player?
http://vmware.com/

vmware player can virtualize and emulate network appliances, and
multiple of them on a single machine, all with their own virtual ip.
It'd be a more realistic test perhaps....

--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

On Dec 7, 6:02 pm, comph...@toddh.net (Todd H.) wrote:
> "Steve Elkins" <sgelk...@gmail.com> writes:
> > I am working on a solution to simulate a bunch of Network Elements,
> > each listening with its own IP address. Part of the test plan has
> > the far end using sftp to transfer a file to each simulated NE.
> > The far end thinks it's talking to different NEs so it uses the
> > same dir and name as the destination of its transfers. In our
> > simulation we'd like to initiate multiple transfers at the same
> > time but of course there's only one file system on the box where
> > the simulator runs. Trouble.
>
> > I was thinking of using the IP address to distinguish incoming files.
> > I know that ~/.ssh/rc can use the value of SSH_CONNECTION to find
> > out what IP address the ssh client connected to, but .ssh/rc doesn't
> > seem to run when sftp is the client. Besides, I don't see that I
> > can pass a directory to sftp-server anyway.
>
> > Has anyone had to do anything like this before? I'd be grateful
> > for your suggestions. Is there any hope of a solution quicker than
> > hacking the sftp-sever code itself?Are virtual appliances available for these network elements as part of
> the free vmware player?
> http://vmware.com/
>
> vmware player can virtualize and emulate network appliances, and
> multiple of them on a single machine, all with their own virtual ip.
> It'd be a more realistic test perhaps....

Thanks! I should've considered vmware and its kin. If I could just
get the
System Under Test authors to provide unique filenames, a virtual OS
would be overkill, but since I'm stuck with the situation for now, and
since
it would give me more than one filesystem, it may be acceptable until I
hack the sftp server or the SUT changes.