Push to RIA storage-only remote from mac to linux fails

[mih]

Origin: datalad/datalad-ria#40

TODO (not necessarily to be performed in this order)

• Inform OP/Add reference to this issue at origin
• Clarifying Qs asked or not needed
• Nature of the issue is understood
• Fix needs to be implemented
• Inform OP about resolution

[bpoldrack]

Not yet sure how and where this would best be done, but for now I checked "Nature is understood" and added a TODO for implementation.

The underlying issue is somewhat old: No remote execution datalad currently has, is actually detecting what platform it is running on. In the concrete case, that means that wrong stat call is issued via SSH, because they differ between Linux and Mac. That problem is not limited to the ORA special remote, but it may be the most important piece affected.

There was an abandoned approach towards a general solution for this, that may be useful to have a look at: datalad/datalad#4068

The concrete issue would, of course, be addressable by solving it for ORA only.
Either way, it would require something that can be executed via SSH that is valid cross-platform and able to deliver the necessary platform information. Running a python script that does that comes to mind, but worth pointing out, that the requirement for a RIA store's server-side to have python would be new.

[ddeepwell]

Running a python script that does that comes to mind, but worth pointing out, that the requirement for a RIA store's server-side to have python would be new.

Just a thought to add on this specific idea. It could be a bash script rather than a python script that executes on the remote platform which determines the correct command. No need to add a python dependency then.

[bpoldrack]

@ddeepwell
Just FTR: My concern with a bash script is a Windows SSH Server. I have never SSH'd into a Windows machine, I don't know what kind of shell it spawns and what would need to be installed and configured on the server side to make it run a bash script. That's why the python suggestion.

[adswa]

(For what its worth, Python also isn't a given on Windows, you would need to explicitly install it and add it to the Windows PATH.)

[jsheunis]

Issue reproduced here: datalad/datalad-ria#40