diff --git a/tests/DodoSSH.Client.Ssh.Tests/SshServerFixture.cs b/tests/DodoSSH.Client.Ssh.Tests/SshServerFixture.cs
index 22ebd31..a06acfc 100644
--- a/tests/DodoSSH.Client.Ssh.Tests/SshServerFixture.cs
+++ b/tests/DodoSSH.Client.Ssh.Tests/SshServerFixture.cs
@@ -1,4 +1,6 @@
+using System.Net.Sockets;
using System.Security.Cryptography;
+using System.Text;
using DotNet.Testcontainers.Builders;
using DotNet.Testcontainers.Containers;
using Xunit;
@@ -40,6 +42,21 @@ public sealed class SshServerFixture : IAsyncLifetime
private const int SshPort = 2222;
+ ///
+ /// How many connections in a row the server has to answer before this fixture calls it ready.
+ ///
+ ///
+ /// Twenty-five, and the number is measured rather than picked. Probing a fresh container 200 times with
+ /// penalties left at the image's default, the first Not allowed at this time came back at probe
+ /// 18 and 183 of the 200 were refused; with PerSourcePenalties no applied, none of 200 were. Ten
+ /// was tried first and is useless — it sits below the threshold, so the guard passed happily against a
+ /// server that was still penalising. See .
+ ///
+ private const int RequiredStreak = 25;
+
+ /// How long to keep trying before giving up on the server entirely.
+ private static readonly TimeSpan ReadyTimeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(60);
+
private readonly SemaphoreSlim sftpGate = new(1, 1);
private IContainer? container;
@@ -80,101 +97,94 @@ public sealed class SshServerFixture : IAsyncLifetime
.Build();
await container.StartAsync();
- await AllowTcpForwardingAsync();
+ await ReconfigureAsync();
+ await WaitUntilServingAsync();
}
///
- /// Lets this server open the direct-tcpip channels a forward is made of.
+ /// Turns off the hardening this suite trips over, and makes the running server re-read its config.
///
///
///
- /// ◆ The image ships AllowTcpForwarding no, and nothing says so at the point it bites. A
- /// dynamic forward starts perfectly happily — it is a local listener, and opening it asks the server
- /// nothing — and then every connection through it is refused when the channel is opened. SSH.NET
- /// reports that as SOCKS5: General failure from the proxy, which names neither the server nor
- /// the setting, and is what the first run of LoopbackProxyTests collected.
+ /// ◆ PerSourcePenalties no is the fix for the flake this suite had for months, and the other
+ /// two settings here are not. OpenSSH 9.8 added per-source penalties and 10.x has them on by
+ /// default; this image runs 10.3. A source address that keeps disconnecting without authenticating is
+ /// penalised, and while the penalty holds every connection from it is answered with the clear-text line
+ /// Not allowed at this time and then closed.
///
///
- /// Patched after start rather than baked in, because the image's entrypoint writes its configuration
- /// itself on every boot — a mounted file would be overwritten before sshd read it. sshd re-reads on
- /// SIGHUP and applies the result to connections made after that, and the readiness wait has
- /// already run, so nothing here races the boot.
+ /// This suite generates exactly that traffic, by design. This client's first contact with an
+ /// unknown host is a connection deliberately refused at the host key — which is a disconnect with no
+ /// authentication attempt — and several tests do nothing else:
+ /// RefusingTheHostKey_AbortsTheConnection, AnUntrustedHost_IsRefusedExactlyAsAShellWouldBe,
+ /// and every helper that learns a host key by being turned away first. Enough of them close together and
+ /// sshd stops talking to the test host altogether, for a while, and then starts again.
+ ///
+ ///
+ /// From the client that is SshConnectionException: The connection was closed by the remote host
+ /// within milliseconds — no banner, nothing to say which of the many reasons it was. It hits whichever
+ /// class is running when the penalty lands and spares the rest, which is why it read as random and why
+ /// the class it hit lost every connection it made rather than a random few. The one test in that
+ /// class that expects a refusal passed throughout, for the wrong reason.
+ ///
+ ///
+ /// ◆ Two earlier diagnoses were wrong, and are recorded here so they are not tried again.
+ /// MaxStartups was blamed on the reasoning that xUnit runs test classes in parallel, so ten
+ /// unauthenticated connections would be in flight at once — but every class that touches this server
+ /// shares , and xUnit's unit of parallelism is the collection, so they run one
+ /// after another and never have more than a connection or two open. The reload window was blamed next,
+ /// and a wait for the banner to answer was written and removed as unproven; it was unproven because the
+ /// banner does answer, right up until the penalty lands.
+ ///
+ ///
+ /// The line is appended rather than replaced in place, unlike the two below it, because the image's
+ /// config does not mention the keyword at all — there is no line to replace, and sshd takes the first
+ /// value it finds for a keyword that appears more than once.
+ ///
+ ///
+ /// ◆ AllowTcpForwarding is what a dynamic forward needs, and the image ships it off as
+ /// hardening. Without it a forward opens perfectly happily — a local listener asks the server nothing —
+ /// and then every connection through it is refused when the channel is opened. SSH.NET reports that as
+ /// SOCKS5: General failure, which names neither the server nor the setting, and is what the first
+ /// run of LoopbackProxyTests collected. That suite is also the alarm if this method ever silently
+ /// stops working.
+ ///
+ ///
+ /// MaxStartups is raised for the reason it should have been in the first place rather than as a
+ /// fix for anything: the compiled-in default refuses connections at random past ten unauthenticated ones
+ /// in flight, and a throttle is hardening a test server has no business reproducing. It is kept, not
+ /// because it was ever shown to matter here, but because removing it would be a second change riding
+ /// along with this one.
+ ///
+ ///
+ /// Both are replaced in place rather than appended, because sshd_config takes the first value
+ /// it finds for a keyword: an appended line would be dead the day the image ships an uncommented one of
+ /// its own.
///
///
/// ◆ /config/sshd/sshd_config, and there are two. The image also carries
- /// /etc/ssh/sshd_config, which looks like the file to patch, reads identically, and is not the
- /// one the running server was started with — patching it changes the text and nothing else, which is a
- /// fix that appears to work and leaves the failure exactly where it was. Measured with find
- /// rather than assumed, after the first version of this method did precisely that.
+ /// /etc/ssh/sshd_config, which looks like the file to patch, reads identically, and is not the one
+ /// the running server was started with — patching it changes the text and nothing else, which is a fix
+ /// that appears to work and leaves the failure exactly where it was.
///
///
- /// It is on for the whole assembly rather than for the one test that needs it. Forwarding is off in
- /// this image as hardening, not as a behaviour worth reproducing: nothing else here opens a channel of
- /// any kind, so allowing it changes what exactly one suite can do and what none of the others see.
- ///
- ///
- /// ◆ MaxStartups is raised here too, against a flake this suite has and that this change is
- /// a mitigation for rather than a proven cure. The distinction is stated because the evidence
- /// stops short of the claim, and a later reader deserves to know which.
- ///
- ///
- /// What is established: sshd's compiled-in default is 10:30:100 — past ten
- /// unauthenticated connections in flight it refuses new ones at random, thirty percent of the
- /// time, rising to always at a hundred — and the image ships the line commented out, so that default
- /// was what ran. xUnit runs test classes in parallel and most classes here open a connection, so ten
- /// in flight is reachable in the opening seconds. A refused connection presents to the client as
- /// SshConnectionException: The connection was closed by the remote host within tens of
- /// milliseconds, on whichever test connects at the wrong moment — which is exactly the observed
- /// failure, seen in CI and reproduced locally.
- ///
- ///
- /// What is not established is that this limit is the only cause, because the flake rate could
- /// not be measured reliably. On the development machine the identical unmodified suite ran 85/85 clean
- /// and, an hour later, failed 13 runs out of 15 — Docker throughput on that host swings far enough to
- /// swamp the effect being measured. Any before/after comparison taken there is noise, and two were,
- /// before that was noticed.
- ///
- ///
- /// It is committed anyway, on the narrower argument that it is right regardless: a connection throttle
- /// is hardening this suite has no interest in reproducing. It exists to test an SSH client, not to
- /// survive a rate limit, and a test server that drops connections at random is a bad test server
- /// whether or not it is the cause of this particular flake.
- ///
- ///
- /// Not fixed by serialising the suite, which would have hidden it and cost the parallelism, and
- /// not by retrying the connect, which would have made the client's own reconnect behaviour untestable
- /// by burying it in the fixture. The limit is a property of a hardened server that this suite has no
- /// interest in reproducing — it exists to test an SSH client, not to survive a throttle.
- ///
- ///
- /// Replaced in place rather than appended, because sshd_config takes the first value it finds
- /// for a keyword: an appended line would be dead the day the image ships an uncommented one of its own.
- ///
- ///
- /// ◆ The reload window is the other candidate, and it is deliberately not guarded against.
- /// SIGHUP makes sshd close its listeners and re-execute itself, and pkill returns when
- /// the signal is delivered rather than when that has finished — so in principle a connection made
- /// immediately afterwards is refused, producing this same exception. A wait that opened connections
- /// until the server answered with its banner three times running was written, and then removed: it
- /// could not be shown to change anything either, and a fixture carrying two unproven fixes for one
- /// symptom is worse than one, because the next person has to disprove both.
- ///
- ///
- /// If this flake returns, that is the next thing to try. Two things to know before trying it: the two
- /// causes are indistinguishable from the client, so a fix can only be judged by a repeat run and never
- /// by whether the next run passes — and the repeat run has to happen somewhere with stable Docker
- /// throughput, which the development machine is not. Better still, make sshd say why: raise its
- /// LogLevel here, disable Ryuk so the container outlives the run, and read
- /// docker logs. A MaxStartups refusal names itself there; a reload does not.
+ /// ◆ Patched after boot and reloaded, rather than injected before it — which was tried and does not
+ /// work. This image family runs /custom-cont-init.d scripts, which look like the right hook
+ /// and are not: the container's own log puts sshd is listening on port 2222 before
+ /// [custom-init] Files found, executing, so a script there edits a file the running server has
+ /// already read. It leaves a config that greps correctly and a server behaving as though it had never
+ /// been touched — the same trap as the wrong file, one layer up. Measured from the log, after a version
+ /// of this fixture did exactly that and failed twenty-eight tests.
///
///
- private async Task AllowTcpForwardingAsync()
+ private async Task ReconfigureAsync()
{
var result = await container!.ExecAsync([
"sh",
"-c",
"sed -i 's/^AllowTcpForwarding no/AllowTcpForwarding yes/' /config/sshd/sshd_config"
+ " && sed -i 's/^#*MaxStartups .*/MaxStartups 200/' /config/sshd/sshd_config"
+ + " && printf '\\nPerSourcePenalties no\\n' >> /config/sshd/sshd_config"
+ " && pkill -HUP sshd",
]);
@@ -183,7 +193,107 @@ public sealed class SshServerFixture : IAsyncLifetime
throw new InvalidOperationException(
$"Could not reconfigure the test server: {result.Stderr}");
}
+ }
+ ///
+ /// Blocks until the server answers connections in a row with its banner.
+ ///
+ ///
+ ///
+ /// ◆ This is a guard rather than a wait, and what it guards against is
+ /// PerSourcePenalties coming back. Reconfiguring above turns it off; this proves it is off,
+ /// immediately and by name, instead of letting the suite discover it later as an unrelated-looking
+ /// failure in whichever class happened to be running.
+ ///
+ ///
+ /// Consecutive, and deliberately with no pause between them. Each probe opens a connection, reads
+ /// the identification string and disconnects without authenticating — which is exactly the shape of
+ /// connection PerSourcePenalties punishes, and exactly what this suite does all day: a first
+ /// contact with an unknown host is a connection this client deliberately refuses at the host key.
+ /// back to back is therefore not a soak test, it is the specific
+ /// provocation, sized above the measured threshold on purpose, and it costs well under a second when the
+ /// setting is off.
+ ///
+ ///
+ /// It is also the one check that can tell a listening socket from a running server. The container's own
+ /// readiness — a log line and netstat showing :2222 — passes on a container whose sshd has
+ /// gone: the socket is published by a host-side proxy that accepts before it has anything to forward to,
+ /// so a dead server presents as a connection accepted and closed rather than as one refused.
+ ///
+ ///
+ /// Probed from the host rather than with docker exec, deliberately: that is the path the tests
+ /// take, proxy included, and penalties are counted per source address — from inside the container the
+ /// source would be the loopback rather than the address every test connects from.
+ ///
+ ///
+ private async Task WaitUntilServingAsync()
+ {
+ // TimeProvider.System rather than DateTimeOffset.UtcNow, which this repository bans so that time can
+ // be faked — and rather than a fake, because what is being waited on is a real container starting.
+ var deadline = TimeProvider.System.GetUtcNow() + ReadyTimeout;
+ var streak = 0;
+ var last = "no probe ran";
+
+ while (streak < RequiredStreak)
+ {
+ if (TimeProvider.System.GetUtcNow() >= deadline)
+ {
+ throw new InvalidOperationException(
+ $"The test server did not answer {RequiredStreak} connections in a row within "
+ + $"{ReadyTimeout}. The last probe said: {last}. If it says \"Not allowed at this "
+ + "time\", sshd is penalising this source address and PerSourcePenalties is no longer "
+ + "being turned off — see ReconfigureAsync.");
+ }
+
+ var (answered, what) = await ProbeAsync();
+ last = what;
+
+ if (answered)
+ {
+ streak++;
+ continue;
+ }
+
+ // Only pause when it is not working. Back-to-back probes are the point while they succeed;
+ // hammering a server that has not finished starting is just noise.
+ streak = 0;
+ await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(200));
+ }
+ }
+
+ /// Opens a socket and reads far enough to see OpenSSH's identification string.
+ ///
+ /// The description comes back with the answer because the interesting failures are not exceptions. A
+ /// penalised source is told Not allowed at this time in clear text before the socket closes, and
+ /// a suite that only knew "no banner" would have to go and find that out again — which is what happened
+ /// the first time, at some length.
+ ///
+ private async Task<(bool Answered, string What)> ProbeAsync()
+ {
+ try
+ {
+ using var probe = new TcpClient();
+ using var timeout = new CancellationTokenSource(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5));
+
+ await probe.ConnectAsync(Host, Port, timeout.Token);
+
+ var buffer = new byte[64];
+ var read = await probe.GetStream().ReadAtLeastAsync(
+ buffer, 4, throwOnEndOfStream: false, timeout.Token);
+
+ var answered = read >= 4 && "SSH-"u8.SequenceEqual(buffer.AsSpan(0, 4));
+
+ return (
+ answered,
+ answered
+ ? "SSH-"
+ : $"{read} bytes: "
+ + Encoding.ASCII.GetString(buffer, 0, Math.Max(read, 0)).ReplaceLineEndings(" "));
+ }
+ catch (Exception exception) when (exception is SocketException or OperationCanceledException or IOException)
+ {
+ return (false, $"{exception.GetType().Name}: {exception.Message}");
+ }
}
///
@@ -225,12 +335,17 @@ public sealed class SshServerFixture : IAsyncLifetime
///
///
///
- /// Shared rather than opened per test, and that is a limit of the server rather than an optimisation.
- /// sshd's MaxStartups drops connections at random once enough are part-way through a handshake,
- /// and this client's first contact with an unknown host is a connection deliberately refused at
- /// the host key — so a suite that opened its own session per test made two handshakes per test and
- /// pushed the whole assembly over the threshold. What that looks like is unrelated tests failing with
- /// "the connection was closed by the remote host", a different few each run.
+ /// Shared rather than opened per test. This was once explained as a way of staying under the server's
+ /// MaxStartups throttle, on the belief that the suite ran its classes in parallel and made two
+ /// handshakes per test — this client's first contact with an unknown host is a connection deliberately
+ /// refused at the host key, so every session costs two. The parallelism was not real: every
+ /// class here shares one collection and xUnit runs collections, not classes, in parallel. See
+ /// , which is where that mistake was found and what the failure it
+ /// was blamed for turned out to be.
+ ///
+ ///
+ /// It stays shared regardless, on the plainer argument: one session is enough, and a handshake per test
+ /// would be seconds of the suite's runtime spent proving nothing this file has not already proved.
///
///
/// Safe to share because an SFTP session holds no per-test state: every test here works in a directory