openssh bugs - Jul 2025 - [Bug 3852] New: Release tarballs contain spurious man pages like ssh_config.0

https://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3852

            Bug ID: 3852
           Summary: Release tarballs contain spurious man pages like
                    ssh_config.0
           Product: Portable OpenSSH
           Version: 8.7p1
          Hardware: All
                OS: Linux
            Status: NEW
          Severity: minor
          Priority: P5
         Component: Build system
          Assignee: unassigned-bugs at mindrot.org
          Reporter: dimakuv at amazon.de

I see spurious already-generated man pages in the release tarballs of
the openssh-portable code. Quick reproducer:

$ wget
https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/OpenSSH/portable/openssh-8.7p1.tar.gz

$ ls ssh_config*
ssh_config  ssh_config.0  ssh_config.5

The first file is the actual config file. The last file is the source
for the man page generation.

But what is ssh_config.0, how is it generated and why is it included in
the tarball? It's a generated man page:

$ head ssh_config.0
SSH_CONFIG(5)                 File Formats Manual               
SSH_CONFIG(5)

NAME
     ssh_config M-bM-^@M-^S OpenSSH client configuration file

DESCRIPTION
     ssh(1) obtains configuration data from the following sources in
the
     following order:

           1.   command-line options

There seems to be no reason to include this file (and other similar
files) in the tarball. There are multiple such files:

$ ls *.0
moduli.0  sftp.0         ssh.0      ssh-agent.0   sshd.0        
ssh-keygen.0   ssh-keysign.0        ssh-sk-helper.0
scp.0     sftp-server.0  ssh-add.0  ssh_config.0  sshd_config.0 
ssh-keyscan.0  ssh-pkcs11-helper.0

Same is observed on the latest openssh tarball: openssh-10.0p2.tar.gz

It would be good to modify the build process for this tarball to *not*
generate these files (or remove them in a final step, if that's
easier).

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https://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3852

Darren Tucker <dtucker at dtucker.net> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 CC|                            |dtucker at dtucker.net

--- Comment #1 from Darren Tucker <dtucker at dtucker.net> ---
They are preformatted man pages which are installed on systems that
don't understand the native mdoc ones.  The logic for selecting these
is on configure.

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https://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3852

Damien Miller <djm at mindrot.org> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 CC|                            |djm at mindrot.org

--- Comment #2 from Damien Miller <djm at mindrot.org>
---
> It would be good to modify the build process for this tarball to *not* >
generate these files
Why? They aren't installed if the system supports mdoc manpages. They
only exist for systems that don't support mdoc.

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Darren Tucker <dtucker at dtucker.net> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|NEW                         |RESOLVED
         Resolution|---                         |WORKSFORME

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