[slime-devel] help with Windows XP remote connection to swank

[George Oliver]

hi, apologies that this is crossposted to emacs.help as I afterward 
found this list.

I'm trying to connect to a remote swank from my local native
Windows Emacs Slime. This seems to be possible but I haven't yet found
a working method. Here's what I'm doing so far:

1. open a ssh tunnel to remote server

C:\Documents and Settings\george\My Documents>plink -P <ssh port> -i
"<private key file>" -ssh -L 4005:localhost:<ssh port> <user>@<host>

2. start swank server on remote server by logging in via ssh

Authenticating with public key "imported-openssh-key"
Passphrase for key "imported-openssh-key":
Last login: Thu Jun  2 00:38:06 2011 from <address>
gmk at labs:~$ ccl64
Welcome to Clozure Common Lisp Version 1.6-r14468M  (LinuxX8664)!
? (ql:quickload "swank")
To load "swank":
   Load 1 ASDF system:
     swank
; Loading "swank"

("swank")
? (swank:create-server)
;; Swank started at port: 4005.
4005

3. M-x slime-connect in local Emacs and accept defaults

This returns the following error:

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (cl-assertion-failed (plusp length))
   (condition-case error (slime-net-read) (error (debug ... error)
(slime-net-close process t) (error "net-read error: %S" error)))
   slime-net-read-or-lose(#<process SLIME Lisp>)
   slime-process-available-input(#<process SLIME Lisp>)
   slime-net-filter(#<process SLIME Lisp> "Protocol mismatch.\n")
   recursive-edit()
   byte-code("\306  @\307=\203!

(note that it seems impossible to cut and paste that text, I guess
from whatever control characters it's outputting to the buffer --
however the cl-assertion-failed seems to be the main problem, for
reference see http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.slime.devel/4732 
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.slime.devel/4732>). 


While I had hopes for this guide (http://
webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?
q=cache:C3LnVLiH5lkJ:www.a1k0n.net/blah/archives/2005/11/index.html+ 
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=www.a1k0n.net/blah/archives/2005/11/index.html%2B> 

%22Using+SLIME+over+an+SSH+tunnel
%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com 
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=www.google.com>), it doesn't seem
like any of the plink-based methods use key authentication.

I'm also having problems connecting just with tramp, as I can't get
plink key authentication to work with that method. There doesn't seem
to be a good way to specify the key. Specifying a saved session with
plink doesn't work, i.e. it returns

Unable to open connection:
Host does not exist

Though normal use of plink works fine.

thanks for any help,

George