Configure dropbear to be fast/insecure? (need a Microblaze speed-up!)

[Steve Hein]

Hi All--

I know that the subject of this email sounds ridiculous....
but let me explain my scenario!

I am running dropbear on a Microblaze-MMU platform
(Spartan-3A FPGA, running @ 62.5MHz).
I've optimized things as far as I know how, but making
an ssh connection to dropbear still takes about 12 seconds,
and the scp and port forwarding performance is still very
slow.     The Microblaze platform is in a completely private
environment    (that is, the network access to the outside
world is via another faster embedded processor within the
same enclosure).     Since all security can be handled from
the node that is accessible to the outside.....I was wondering
if it is possible to configure dropbear in an "insecure" mode,
even to the point of not using encryption?     I know that
there are other alternatives such as rsh/rcp, but I would like
to stay with the ssh method (and I may have a need for
some port forwarding in the future).

Has anyone had any experience with this type of
configuration?    I guess I should also ask:  does anyone
know of any way to improve the speed performance of
ssh on a slow platform like the Microblaze?  Our access
to the Microbaze will require frequent, repeated ssh
sessions, so any real delay in establishing connections
isn't acceptable.

Thanks for tolerating this "dumb question", and thanks
in advance for any help!

Steve Hein,
SGI, Inc.