Agreed, and I think a larger part of it is that most folks pick it up based on context after long enough, so it’s rarely explained. The square brackets are optional arguments. So I could use ssh 192.168.1.1 or ssh postimo@192.168.1.1 with the first asking for the account after I connect, and the second just asking for the password. You can see how the computer took it in the response you got. hostname ]192.168.1.1 being it saw the @ and assumed everything after was the hostname and included the ]
It’s worth noting that you can’t just connect to a random machine like this, they need to also be running an ssh server. But I wouldn’t expect you to know that without reading a great deal more of the documentation 🫠
I’ve been using ssh for decades, you don’t have to explain it to me. It was a purely contrived example to simulate what I think a new user might experience if faced with that particular man page as their only documentation.
Oh my mistake, I didn’t mean to demean at all. Yeah I think even in your example there are baked in knowledge we’ve picked up that we don’t realize, and that a very likely response from fully fresh eyes would seeing the synopsis is “oh this isn’t for me.”
Agreed, and I think a larger part of it is that most folks pick it up based on context after long enough, so it’s rarely explained. The square brackets are optional arguments. So I could use
ssh 192.168.1.1orssh postimo@192.168.1.1with the first asking for the account after I connect, and the second just asking for the password. You can see how the computer took it in the response you got.hostname ]192.168.1.1being it saw the@and assumed everything after was the hostname and included the ]It’s worth noting that you can’t just connect to a random machine like this, they need to also be running an ssh server. But I wouldn’t expect you to know that without reading a great deal more of the documentation 🫠
I’ve been using ssh for decades, you don’t have to explain it to me. It was a purely contrived example to simulate what I think a new user might experience if faced with that particular man page as their only documentation.
Oh my mistake, I didn’t mean to demean at all. Yeah I think even in your example there are baked in knowledge we’ve picked up that we don’t realize, and that a very likely response from fully fresh eyes would seeing the synopsis is “oh this isn’t for me.”