openssh unix dev - Mar 2021 - "ssh-keygen -R hostname" errors out with non-existent known_hosts

On Tue, 23 Mar 2021, Noah Zalev wrote:
> It may be a success according to your semantics in this instance, but
> what about in cases where the known_host file *should* have been
> found, but wasn't?
What do you care?

Its job is to ensure the next ssh to that host will not have an old
host key in the way. If there?s no known_hosts file, that?s done.

If you really need to test whether that file exists? test(1) exists.

Don?t complicate things.

bye,
//mirabilos
-- 
?MyISAM tables -will- get corrupted eventually. This is a fact of life. ?
?mysql is about as much database as ms access? ? ?MSSQL at least descends
from a database? ?it's a rebranded SyBase? ?MySQL however was born from a
flatfile and went downhill from there? ? ?at least jetDB doesn?t claim to
be a database?	(#nosec)    ??? Please let MySQL and MariaDB finally die!

> Its job is to ensure the next ssh to that host will not have an old
> host key in the way. If there?s no known_hosts file, that?s done.
one could make the same argument about umount; it's job is to make
sure a particular device isn't mounted

  $ umount: /mnt/this-disk-does-not-exist: no mount point specified.
  umount: /mnt/this-disk-does-not-exist: no mount point specified.
  $ echo $?
  32
> If you really need to test whether that file exists? test(1) exists.
and similarly someone could test(1) that ~/.ssh/known_hosts exists
before calling ssh-keygen -R (which honestly seems like the easiest
solution to the original problem)

anyway, this is definitely in the realm of bikeshedding.

On Wed, 24 Mar 2021, Thorsten Glaser wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Mar 2021, Noah Zalev wrote:
> 
> > It may be a success according to your semantics in this instance, but
> > what about in cases where the known_host file *should* have been
> > found, but wasn't?
> 
> What do you care?
Because known_hosts not existing is an abnormal condition for a tool
that is asked to modify known_hosts.