Bug#987849: ssh: misleading "invalid format" message about public key when using private key

Package: ssh
Version: 1:7.9p1-10+deb10u2
Severity: wishlist

Dear Maintainer,


   * What led up to the situation?

I deployed a new set of ssh-keys on a machine. 
I installed (not on purpose) id_ed25519.pub with the from="ip" in front of the key.



   * What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
     ineffective)?

I'm trying to ssh from the host_1 to host_2

when running ssh from host_1 :
load pubkey "/home/devops/.ssh/id_ed25519": invalid format
[email protected]: Permission denied (publickey,password).

I assumed my private key was wrong here, thus ending in authentication failure
(turns out it was not related, it was an issue on host_2)

   * What was the outcome of this action?

I started investigating my private key.

   * What outcome did you expect instead?

instead of : 
load pubkey "/home/devops/.ssh/id_ed25519": invalid format

I would like to see a .pub at the end, and also something that says "informational, non-critical, non-related to current operation"

Something like :
+FYI not related
+ .pub at the end of the file name :
+ s/pub/loading Public/

FYI, not related : loading Public key "/home/devops/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub": invalid format





-- System Information:
Debian Release: 10.8
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (900, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.19.0-10-amd64 (SMP w/12 CPU cores)
Kernel taint flags: TAINT_PROPRIETARY_MODULE, TAINT_OOT_MODULE, TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE
Locale: LANG=en_CA.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_CA.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_CA:en (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages ssh depends on:
ii  dpkg            1.19.7
ii  openssh-client  1:7.9p1-10+deb10u2
ii  openssh-server  1:7.9p1-10+deb10u2

ssh recommends no packages.

ssh suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information