Git says “Warning: Permanently added to the list of known hosts”

Create a ~/.ssh/config file and insert the line:

UserKnownHostsFile ~/.ssh/known_hosts

You will then see the message the next time you access Github, but after that you’ll not see it anymore because the host is added to the known_hosts file. This fixes the issue, rather than just hiding the log message.

This problem was bugging me for quite some time. The problem occurs because the OpenSSH client compiled for Windows doesn’t check the known_hosts file in ~/.ssh/known_hosts

ssh -vvv git@github.com

debug3: check_host_in_hostfile: filename /dev/null
debug3: check_host_in_hostfile: filename /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts
debug3: check_host_in_hostfile: filename /dev/null
debug3: check_host_in_hostfile: filename /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts
Warning: Permanently added 'github.com,207.97.227.239' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.