Debian Bug report logs - #289403
openssh: ssh documentation: No docs on -- flag.

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Message #5 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Greg Kochanski <[email protected]>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <[email protected]>

Subject: openssh: ssh documentation: No docs on -- flag.

Date: Sat, 08 Jan 2005 22:51:15 +0000

Package: openssh
Severity: minor


The -- flag is not documented in the ssh man page or
in the 'usage:' information that is printed by ssh.
It actually does work as one would expect.

This is mildly important, because if anyone were to write a
shell script that executed

ssh "$host" ls

and the host name was set to some flag (like -2),
then ssh would unexpectedly try to connect to
a host named "ls".

It might be possible to create some sort of a security
breach this way, though it would take a good bit
of ingenuity.

scp -- "$host" ls

cleanly  removes the possibility of trouble from hostnames beginning
with hyphens.   It should be encouraged.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.8-1-686
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Message #12 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Colin Watson <[email protected]>

To: Greg Kochanski <[email protected]>, [email protected], [email protected]

Cc: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Bug#289401: /usr/bin/scp: scp documentation: The -- flag is not documented

Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 00:04:17 +0000

forwarded 289401 http://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=970
forwarded 289403 http://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=970
thanks

On Sat, Jan 08, 2005 at 10:43:32PM +0000, Greg Kochanski wrote:
> The -- flag actually works as one might expect, but it is
> not documented either in the man page or in the 'Usage'
> output of scp.

I've forwarded your suggestion from both this bug and #289403 (they're
really the same, I think, even though the documentation would need to be
written in two places) to the OpenSSH portable team. Thanks!

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [[email protected]]

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