Hello All,

Im using OpenSSH 4.3p2 and tyring to scan a list of 40 machines in my 
network with ssh-keyscan utility. I used the following command,

ssh-keyscan -t rsa -f hosts.txt

The man page says that this utility displays the host keys rrespective of ssh or host is up/down and its working great. But in case if the scan stops at 30th host due to some protocol problems, the utility exits and don't display the host keys for remaining machines. I think this is an expected behaviour, but it would be better to ignore that host continue till the end or atleast this can be documented specifically in the man page.

I digged up this problem further and find my results below.

ssh-keyscan ignores the hosts if they are not up or sshd is not running
when used with -f <file> option. But when it encounters any error while
retrieving the host key from the machine which is up and have sshd running,it simply exits. This may happen due to transport layer implementation in packet.c at packet_read_poll_seqnr() which results in exiting.

My guess is that as packet.c is utilised by all OpenSSH utilities
including ssh-keyscan, we can't make ssh-keyscan to continue with
remaining hosts as specified in -f <files> in case of an error. But I also vote for atleast documenting this one.

Detailed debug traces are given below:
--------------------------------------
# ssh-keyscan -vvv -t rsa host.server.com
debug2: fd 3 setting O_NONBLOCK
debug1: no match: mpSSH_0.1.0
# host.server.com SSH-2.0-mpSSH_0.1.0
debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0
debug3: RNG is ready, skipping seeding
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent
Received disconnect from 16.245.97.226: 11:  SSH Disabled


# ssh -vvv host.server.com
OpenSSH_4.3p2-hpn, OpenSSL 0.9.7i 14 Oct 2005
HP-UX Secure Shell-A.04.30.005, HP-UX Secure Shell version
debug1: Reading configuration data /opt/ssh/etc/ssh_config
debug3: RNG is ready, skipping seeding
debug2: ssh_connect: needpriv 0
debug1: Connecting to host.server.com [16.245.97.226] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: permanently_set_uid: 0/3
debug1: identity file /.ssh/identity type 0
debug3: Not a RSA1 key file /.ssh/id_rsa.
debug2: key_type_from_name: unknown key type '-----BEGIN'
debug3: key_read: missing keytype
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug2: key_type_from_name: unknown key type '-----END'
debug3: key_read: missing keytype
debug1: identity file /.ssh/id_rsa type 1
debug3: Not a RSA1 key file /.ssh/id_dsa.
debug2: key_type_from_name: unknown key type '-----BEGIN'
debug3: key_read: missing keytype
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug2: key_type_from_name: unknown key type '-----END'
debug3: key_read: missing keytype
debug1: identity file /.ssh/id_dsa type 2
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version mpSSH_0.1.0
debug1: no match: mpSSH_0.1.0
debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0
debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_4.3p2-hpn
debug2: fd 4 setting O_NONBLOCK
debug3: RNG is ready, skipping seeding
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent
Received disconnect from 16.245.97.226: 11:  SSH Disabled