This is a really simple package to read and parse known_users files. This can be useful when you want to verify that the SSH host you are talking to is legitimate.
var known_hosts = require('known_hosts');
var keys = known_hosts.parseKnownHostsFile();
...
var connectionOptions = {
hostHash: 'sha1',
checkHostValid: function (serverKeyHash) {
var valid = false;
keys.forEach(function (k) {
if (k.hostCheck(remoteHost) && someSecurityFunction(remoteHost, serverKeyHash)) valid = true;
});
return valid;
}
}Running the parseKnownHostsFile without any arguments will try to use the known hosts file under your user directory (~/.ssh/known_hosts). You can also pass it a file path to another file, or a string to be parsed.
This module handles both encrypted and unencrypted keys. If the 'HashKnownHosts' option in either /etc/ssh/ssh_config or ~/.ssh/config is set to 'Yes', your hosts file will be encrypted. The salt is stored in the known_hosts file, so we can verify against it. Until the correct IP or hostname is provided, there's no way to know what that host points to. This is generally a good idea, since it makes attacking hosts in your known_hosts file harder if an attacker gets control of your computer.
Let me know if there's an issue or something you'd like added. I wrote this as a quick and easy way to check hosts while using the ssh2 npm module. I wrote known_hosts this morning, so there may be bugs.