openssh continues to process dash arguements after hostname

[Philip Spencer]

It is also common to alias "ssh host" to a single command for convenience, 
e.g.  

      alias foo "ssh somehost"

so one can log in to host somehost by simply typing

      foo

To log in as another user one then naturally types

      foo -l user

which translates into "ssh somehost -l user".

Besides thinking of "ssh host" as a single unit, it is also common
to think of the hostname as being like an argument to ssh, as distinct
from the command to be executed, so based on the principle that arguments
can be entered in any order one expects that (or at least I expect that)
"ssh -l user host command" and "ssh host -l user command" should be
equivalent, just as "ssh -x -C ..." and "ssh -C -x ..." are equivalent.

These two psychological habits -- thinking of "ssh host" as a single unit,
and/or thinking of "host" as an argument to ssh which can be interchanged
with the other arguments -- are in my opinion so common that for openssh
to do anything other than it does now would break things for many, many
people.

Just an opinion from a lurker on the list...

--------------------------------------------+-------------------------------
Philip Spencer  pspencer at fields.utoronto.ca | Director of Computing Services
Room 336        (416)-348-9710  ext3036     | The Fields Institute for
222 College St, Toronto ON M5T 3J1 Canada   | Research in Mathematical Sciences


On Fri, 30 Apr 2004, Dan Yefimov wrote:

> On 29 Apr 2004, at 23:55:57, John Davidorff Pell wrote:
> 
> > Who?
> >
> Me, for example, and many other people I'm familiar with.
> 
> >
> > On 27 Apr 2004, at 18:39, Markus Friedl wrote:
> >
> > > too many people are using:
> > >
> > > 	$ ssh host -l user