Hello list, I'm new to ssh and I'm trying to set up an openssh server and some clients. I have a problem with the order in which openssh reads and applys the client configuration files (openssh 2.9.9p2 SuSE 7.3 ). The man page and the o'reily book state the order in which configuration data is obtained as : 1. command line options, 2. user's configuration file ($HOME/.ssh/config) 3. system-wide configuration file (/etc/ssh/ssh_config) and for each parameter the first obtained value will be used. For me that means, that if I set an parameter in my $HOME/.ssh/config and agin in /etc/ssh/ssh_config the value from the $HOME/.ssh/config will be used. My trouble is, I'm observing a differnt behaviour ( as you can see in the log below ): OpenSSH_2.9.9p2, SSH protocols 1.5/2.0, OpenSSL 0x0090602f debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config debug1: Applying options for * debug1: Reading configuration data /home/ruhej/.ssh/config debug1: Applying options for * Here the options in the system-wide configuration file are applied first. I have seen this on several differnt computers, all with SuSE 7.3 and openssh 2.9.9p2 . Unfortuanly I'm not able to compare this behavior with an earlier version of openssh and suse. If I do an ssh -F config-file everything works, as in my understanding it should work, the given config-file is read an nothing else. I would be glad, if somebody could help me with this problem ( or tell me what I did wrong ). Thanks Joerg Ruhe Joerg.Ruhe@epost.de