Adding XDG BDS paths *as fallbacks only*, not replacing ~/.ssh

[Damien Miller]

On Fri, 2 Feb 2024, 90 wrote:

> Since I can't help but feel like my previous email is already being flat-out ignored, I would just like to reiterate:
> 
> - I am not asking for ~/.ssh to stop being used.
> - I am happy to contribute this myself with the blessing of the devs.
> 
> All I would like is to be able to move files within ~/.ssh to their appropriate XDG paths and have OpenSSH continue to find these files without me needing to explicitly configure it to do so with either command options or root access for sshd. I would think this is a perfectly reasonable alternative to ask for, especially if the requirement is to prioritise the legacy ~/.ssh path for backwards compatibility.
> 
> Would this please at least be taken into consideration? Thank you.

No, sorry. This has been discussed extensively before, leading to the
most uncivil discussion our bugtracker has ever seen and the only
permanent user bans I've ever had to implement. Myself and the other
developers have zero desire to relitigate this and no intention of
implementing it.

TLDR in case you can't find the past discssion: ssh is not a desktop
program and predates the XDG specifications by two decades. Adding
additional configuration paths is confusing and potentially risky
for .ssh as, quite unlike usual "desktop" apps, it *grants system
access* and having its configuration smeared across several possible
paths makes managing this more confusing and brittle.

-d