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orca/docs/reference
Neil 2a99a95b9c docs(ssh): design for real host key verification (STA-4319)
Today's ssh2 verifier records a fingerprint and returns true — every host key is
accepted, with no known_hosts consult and no change detection anywhere in
src/main/ssh/. Scope is per-connection, so exec, SFTP, port forwarding, the
watcher and relay deploy all ride that one unverified handshake, and the
ProxyJump path puts the final hop — the topology most likely to cross untrusted
network — on ssh2 specifically.

Decisions worth calling out:

- Read the user's known_hosts as a trust source but NEVER write to it. That file
  is shared with every other SSH tool on the machine; appending means line
  endings, permissions, concurrent writers and a corruption blast radius well
  beyond us. Accepted keys go to our own per-target store. Reading theirs is also
  the entire migration story: most developers already have their hosts there.
- Mismatch is scoped to the SAME key type. A host with only an RSA entry that
  presents ed25519 is unknown, not changed. ssh2 negotiates ed25519 first, so
  without this we would fire a change-of-key alarm at nearly every existing user
  on their first upgraded connect — training them to dismiss the one warning that
  is supposed to mean something. Flagged in review as the decision I am least
  sure of; a downgrade-vector argument against it is being tested.
- Changed key hard-fails with no override button; recovery is a separate explicit
  action, offered only when OUR store is what disagreed, because forgetting our
  record cannot unblock a known_hosts conflict.
- Background reconnects deny rather than prompt. A dialog the user cannot place
  in context only teaches click-through.

Two traps are documented because either would make the fix silently do nothing:
an async verifier returns a Promise, which ssh2 reads as truthy and accepts
immediately; and the existing test mock invokes hostVerifier with one argument
and ignores the return, so it would pass against a verifier that never decides.

Design only — no behaviour change. The doc is added to the tracked-reference
allowlist in .gitignore alongside the other docs/reference entries.
2026-08-14 02:35:56 -07:00
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