threads / bug / 60791

Slightly embarassing bug in error message when RSA key doesn't match.

Subject: Slightly embarassing bug in error message when RSA key doesn't match.

## tl;dr

2 messages between Jan 25, 2024 and Jan 25, 2024.

replies: 1people: 2as markdown or json

Peter da Silva· Jan 25, 2024, 16:37 UTC · lore

git version 2.20.1

I just went to clone a repo on github on a dev server that I hadn't used since March 1 2023.

Github updated their RSA key on March 24th.

So I got this message.

Warning: the ECDSA host key for 'github.com' differs from the key for
the IP address '140.82.113.3'
Offending key for IP in /[...]/.ssh/known_hosts:8
Matching host key in /[...]/.ssh/known_hosts:18

Of course it was the RSA key that had changed, and known_hosts:8 was an RSA key, but the error said the ECDSA key was wrong. After removing the bogus RSA key from the file it worked fine with the matching ECDSA key. This error should probably report the correct type for the key that is wrong rather than the key it’s trying to use. :)

Jeff King· Jan 25, 2024, 18:12 UTC · re: Peter da Silva · lore

Re: Slightly embarassing bug in error message when RSA key doesn't match.

On Thu, Jan 25, 2024 at 10:37:15AM -0600, Peter da Silva wrote:

Show 10 quoted lines

> Warning: the ECDSA host key for 'github.com' differs from the key for
> the IP address '140.82.113.3'
> Offending key for IP in /[...]/.ssh/known_hosts:8
> Matching host key in /[...]/.ssh/known_hosts:18
> 
> Of course it was the RSA key that had changed, and known_hosts:8 was
> an RSA key, but the error said the ECDSA key was wrong. After removing
> the bogus RSA key from the file it worked fine with the matching ECDSA
> key. This error should probably report the correct type for the key
> that is wrong rather than the key it’s trying to use. :)

This comes from your ssh client, not Git itself (of course Git is calling the ssh client under the hood, but we can't fix their messages).

-Peff