UpdateHostkeys now enabled by default

Mark D. Baushke mdb at juniper.net
Sun Oct 4 17:11:18 AEDT 2020


Hi Damien,

UpdateHostkeys is an interesting feature. I hope you plan to document it
somewhat better in the ssh_config.5 file than is currently present?

My reading of the documentation is that it is ambiguous as to the
following:

  if StrictHostKeyChecking=yes and UpdateHostkeys=yes
  which option wins?

  (My vote is that StrictHostKeyChecking=yes wins every time.)

  If the hostkey that matches is found in GlobalKnownHostsFile, then I
  hope that the UpdateHostKeys is NOT used to update the
  UserKnownHostsFile ... 

  My vote is to assume that the GlobalKnownHostsFile is being properly
  managed and maintained for the listed hosts and UpdateHostKeys would
  be ignored in this case.

  I am unclear what happens with UpdateHostKeys when the key is found
  via DNS SSHFP and the use of VerifyHostKeyDNS settings. 

  My vote is that if the key is found in DNS SSHFP records, the
  UpdateHostKeys does NOT get used to add to the UserKnownHostsFile.

  How do CheckHostIP=yes and UpdateHostKeys play together?
  It is not clear to me if the HostIP fingerprints AND the Hostname
  fingerprint recards are BOTH to be added via the UpdateHostKeys
  directive or not.

I believe it would be wise to be explicit with regards to these impacts
to the UpdateHostKeys option as described in the man page.

Thank you for your considerating of these questions.

	Be safe, stay healthy,
	-- Mark


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