Bug 7756 - No SSH host key type is displayed for the host key fingerprint, making identifying a valid key more difficult
Summary: No SSH host key type is displayed for the host key fingerprint, making identi...
Status: CLOSED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: ThinLinc
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Client (show other bugs)
Version: trunk
Hardware: PC Unknown
: P2 Normal
Target Milestone: 4.14.0
Assignee: William Sjöblom
URL:
Keywords: ossman_tester, relnotes
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2021-08-27 09:31 CEST by William Sjöblom
Modified: 2022-01-03 16:46 CET (History)
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Description William Sjöblom cendio 2021-08-27 09:31:04 CEST 
When the client displays a host key fingerprint to the user, for example when it encounters a new host that is not previously known, it does not specify the type of the key resulting in the shown fingerprint. Since the fingerprint is different for different key types we would ideally show the key type along with the fingerprint. This would make identifying a valid host key somewhat simpler.

This is not as much of a problem in the logs since OpenSSH logs host key types along with their fingerprints for us.
Comment 3 William Sjöblom cendio 2021-08-30 14:14:30 CEST 
I have tested the client on Fedora 34 and the key type is now displayed as in OpenSSH.

This bug is to be tested along with bug 7639. See bug 7639, comment 8 for more details.
Comment 4 Pierre Ossman cendio 2021-09-02 09:25:37 CEST 
Seems to work fine. Checked with Fedora 34 against Ubuntu 20.04:

 * New host key
 * Changed host key
 * Changed host key, and not allowed to continue

As mentioned earlier, ssh already mentions the type in the logs for the used host key so we didn't have to change anything there.

We don't log the types for already known host keys or acceptable host keys (for the agent), but I think we can live without that. This is mostly for helping the end user anyway.
Comment 5 Pierre Ossman cendio 2021-12-30 14:31:34 CET 
The way the displayed strings are constructed is probably not very translation friendly. OpenSSH has the exact same phrasing, but they don't have to deal with translations.
Comment 7 William Sjöblom cendio 2022-01-03 13:42:03 CET 
I have now broken up the hostkey fingerprint and type into different paragraphs which should simplify translations. I have tested all three dialogs on Fedora 35 without any issues. Marking as resolved.
Comment 8 Pierre Ossman cendio 2022-01-03 16:46:50 CET 
Restested all three prompts and they look okay. Checked with Fedora 34 against Ubuntu 20.04:

 * New host key
 * Changed host key
 * Changed host key, and not allowed to continue

Also checked commit and everything looks good there.
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