openssh bugs - Mar 2008 - [Bug 1448] New: Report wrong command-line options

https://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1448

           Summary: Report wrong command-line options                      
    Classification: Unclassified                                           
           Product: Portable OpenSSH                                       
           Version: 4.6p1                                                  
          Platform: Other                                                  
        OS/Version: Linux                                                  
            Status: NEW                                                    
          Keywords: low-hanging-fruit                                      
          Severity: normal                                                 
          Priority: P2                                                     
         Component: scp                                                    
        AssignedTo: bitbucket at mindrot.org                                  
        ReportedBy: bonniot at gmail.com                                      


It seems that currently scp just silently ignores command-line options
that it does not understand. That is surprising and possibly dangerous
or damageable (since once will expect the option to have been taken
into account).

It seems pretty standard for a tool to fail on unknown options, but
since that might break existing scripts, maybe starting with reporting
a warning would be the best compromise.

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https://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1448





--- Comment #1 from bonniot at gmail.com  2008-11-04 05:59:56 ---
To clarify, this is the case with long options (starting with --...).
Example:
touch a; scp --foobarbaz a b
does not report any error or warning.

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https://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1448

Damien Miller <djm at mindrot.org> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 CC|                            |djm at mindrot.org
             Status|NEW                         |RESOLVED
         Resolution|                            |WONTFIX

--- Comment #2 from Damien Miller <djm at mindrot.org> 2012-03-09 11:33:49
EST ---
scp does report unknown options:

$ scp -X a: b:
scp: illegal option -- X
usage: scp [-12346BCpqrv] [-c cipher] [-F ssh_config] [-i
identity_file]
           [-l limit] [-o ssh_option] [-P port] [-S program]
           [[user@]host1:]file1 ... [[user@]host2:]file2

It also reports --options options on OpenBSD:

$ scp --blah a: b:
scp: illegal option -- -
usage: scp [-12346BCpqrv] [-c cipher] [-F ssh_config] [-i
identity_file]
           [-l limit] [-o ssh_option] [-P port] [-S program]
           [[user@]host1:]file1 ... [[user@]host2:]file2

I think what is happening that GNU getopt is swallowing the long
options before scp sees them. There isn't much scp could do here except
perhaps avoid the system getopt() for its own and I don't think this is
worth it.

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bonniot at gmail.com changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|RESOLVED                    |REOPENED
         Resolution|WONTFIX                     |

--- Comment #3 from bonniot at gmail.com 2012-03-12 19:58:51 EST ---
I don't know scp interracts with getopt. But it seems to me that either
getopt offers a way to know that that long option was given, and scp
could fail/warn if it does not know the option. Or getopt does not
allow that, and a bug report/feature request is in order.

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