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I just cloned an Ubuntu template in vSphere Client, just like I've done hundreds of times before. It didn't give me any errors, however when I went to SSH into this server to test it, I get the following warning at the command prompt:

The authenticity of host 'dmcetl01 (10.40.6.23)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is <blah>.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'myapp01' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.
Warning: the ECDSA host key for 'myapp01' differs from the key for the IP address '10.40.6.23'
Offending key for IP in /home/myuser/.ssh/known_hosts:38

Obviously, I replaced <blah> with the actual fingerprint (maybe that was unnecessary but I did so for security reasons).

I'm able to SSH in, but this new, never-before-seen warning has me a bit unsettled.

Any idea why I'm seeing this all of the sudden?

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This is most likely because a different node, with a different fingerprint, previously existed at that IP address (10.40.6.23).

Confirm that this is the case, but generally, when you're SSHing to a new host for the first time you can expect to see this kind of warning - when you should be worried is when it's an existing host whose key has unexpectedly changed.

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  • Thanks @Shane Madden (+1) - so to confirm: inside /home/myuser/.ssh/known_hosts, I store "fingerprint info" about certain IP addresses. If an old VM used to have this IP (10.40.6.23), and was then deleted from vSphere, then a new VM could get reassigned the same IP, in which case my SSH client complains with that particular warning, yes? Thanks again!
    – smeeb
    Jan 19, 2015 at 19:55
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    @smeeb Yup, exactly right.
    – Shane Madden
    Jan 19, 2015 at 19:56

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