Maintaining Known Hosts in Solaris Secure Shell
Each host that needs to communicate securely with another host must have the
server's public key stored in the local host's /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts file. Although a
script could be used to update the /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts files, such a practice
is heavily discouraged because a script opens a major security vulnerability.
The /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts file should only be distributed by a secure mechanism as follows:
Over a secure connection, such as Solaris Secure Shell, IPsec, or Kerberized ftp from a known and trusted machine
At system install time
To avoid the possibility of an intruder gaining access by inserting bogus public
keys into a known_hosts file, you should use a JumpStartTM server as the
known and trusted source of the ssh_known_hosts file. The ssh_known_hosts file can be distributed
during installation. Later, scripts that use the scp command can be used to
pull in the latest version. This approach is secure because each host already
has the public key from the JumpStart server.
