Maybe you are misunderstanding how this works and what it is supposed to do.... If you do allow it to save to a real known_hosts file it should no longer ask you or warn you about "man in the middle" attacks because you do have "StrictHostKeyChecking=no". As that is the whole purpose of that is to warn you when a host has changed and there is a possible "man in the middle" attack. I do not know of a way to avoid that initial adding to the "known_hosts" file. But if you allow it to save to a regular known_hosts file, you should only have to hit (y) 1 time to add that initial known_hosts signature and that is it. So, even if the host changes, it won't matter. It shouldn't prompt you again to add it again or warn you that it has changed since you have "StrictHostKeyChecking=no". Hope that helps... Brian ----- Original Message ----- From: "\"Peter Valdemar Mørch (Lists)\"" <4ux6as402@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: secureshell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2009 10:04:10 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Alternative to -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null ? Question -------- I often know and accept that portX on serverY is not the same as it was 10 minutes ago. Therefore I don't want to use ~/.ssh/known_hosts. So I use "ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -p portX serverY" but it is very lengthy to type and always yields this message: Warning: Permanently added '<host>,<ip>' (RSA) to the list of known hosts where 'list of known hosts' presumably is /dev/null. Is there a better way to suppress using host keys? I wish there was a --no-hostkeys or similar option to do this. If not, is there a way to avoid the above warning? It is misleading, and I prefer not to train myself to avoid warnings. (Yes, there are security problems when not using host keys. I know.) I've tried to search the mailing list, but http://marc.info/?l=secure-shell&w=2&r=1&s=stricthostkeychecking&q=b shows some really weird results (try it!) Further background ------------------ - We're on a LAN where our DHCP server is messed up. And corporate wisdom dictates that it isn't worth it to ensure that hosts get the same IP address at every reboot. We have to deal with it. - We use port forwarding a lot, so port 2223 on serverX is forwarded to a particular host right now, but a different one in 10 minutes. That is reality for us. - Also, we often test fresh installations, where each test involves installation of the ssh package and hence the host keys differ from test to test. From a security standpoint an easy option to disable host keys when we *know* they won't work is better than putting the StrictHostKeyChecking=no and UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null in ~/.ssh/config and then teaching the eye not to see the "Warning: Permanently added..." message, isn't it? Peter -- Peter Valdemar Mørch http://www.morch.com
