possible error in ssh-copy-id man page

[Josef Assad]

On 10/23/2012 01:27 PM, Sebastiano Di Paola wrote:
> It seems to me to be correct.
> The last line just clarify that if "-i° is used then keys eventually
> present in ssh-agent are not used, but the content of identity file is
> used instead.
> Kind regards.
> Sebastiano
> 
> On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 12:50 PM, Josef Assad <josef at josefassad.com> wrote:
>> The man page for ssh-copy-id says:
>>
>> If the
>> .B -i
>> option is given then the identity file (defaults to
>> .BR ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub )
>>
>> Than a few lines later it says:
>>
>> If the
>> .B -i
>> option is used, or the
>> .B ssh-add
>> produced no output, then it uses the contents of the identity
>> file.
>>
>> Shouldn't the former line say "If the -i option is _not_ given?


Ah I see what you mean. Hm. It only made sense to me when I read the
source though. If it's useful, here's an alternative wording:



If the -i option is given and the identity_file parameter is provided,
then ssh-copy-id will look in this file for the identities.

If the -i option is given and the identity_file parameter is omitted,
then ssh-copy-id will look in the default ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.

If the -i option is omitted then ssh-copy-id will use the output of the
command ssh-agent -L to obtain the identities. If ssh-add produces no
output, then ssh-copy-id will fall back again to the default
~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.




Cheers,

Josef Assad