SSH Host Key Rsync Issue

Question

I have a bash script which uses rsync to pull down backups of my server to an offline server I have running Ubuntu.

But it does not seem my offline server wants to run this script right. And the issue I get when I run it manually run it is,

Host key verification failed.
rsync: connection unexpectedly closed (0 bytes received so far) [Receiver]
rsync error: unexplained error (code 255) at io.c(226) [Receiver=3.1.1]

But heres the thing, the host key is fine and works when I SSH. So logging on to my offline server and from there logging into the remote server works without any issues.

Here is where the issue gets very odd, the bash script works (when asked to run via webmin) after I have SSHed into the offline server. I dont have to do anything else, just login to the remote server and the bash script will work.

That is what I dont understand, if the host keys are not configured right, then they should not work at all, but they do, once I have logged into the server?

Thanks,

Answer 1

Try to login with ssh -a to prevent your ssh-agent to be forwarded. You probably use an identiy in your agent to authenticate to the target Server. This authentication will not work if your ssh-agent ist not present.