Descobriu-se que, de fato, o problema estava no conteúdo do arquivo .ssh/known_hosts
. O ssh de Travis usa praticamente as opções padrão, então ele tenta pedir confirmação em cada nova chave, o que, por sua vez, resultará nessa mensagem de erro obscura.
No Ubuntu, a equipe do Travis fornece um arquivo .ssh/known_hosts
predefinido, que contém 5 linhas com as chaves populares do github:
github.com,192.30.252.129 ssh-dss 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
github.com,192.30.252.129 ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAQEAq2A7hRGmdnm9tUDbO9IDSwBK6TbQa+PXYPCPy6rbTrTtw7PHkccKrpp0yVhp5HdEIcKr6pLlVDBfOLX9QUsyCOV0wzfjIJNlGEYsdlLJizHhbn2mUjvSAHQqZETYP81eFzLQNnPHt4EVVUh7VfDESU84KezmD5QlWpXLmvU31/yMf+Se8xhHTvKSCZIFImWwoG6mbUoWf9nzpIoaSjB+weqqUUmpaaasXVal72J+UX2B+2RPW3RcT0eOzQgqlJL3RKrTJvdsjE3JEAvGq3lGHSZXy28G3skua2SmVi/w4yCE6gbODqnTWlg7+wC604ydGXA8VJiS5ap43JXiUFFAaQ==
gist.github.com,192.30.252.141 ssh-dss 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
gist.github.com,192.30.252.141 ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAQEAq2A7hRGmdnm9tUDbO9IDSwBK6TbQa+PXYPCPy6rbTrTtw7PHkccKrpp0yVhp5HdEIcKr6pLlVDBfOLX9QUsyCOV0wzfjIJNlGEYsdlLJizHhbn2mUjvSAHQqZETYP81eFzLQNnPHt4EVVUh7VfDESU84KezmD5QlWpXLmvU31/yMf+Se8xhHTvKSCZIFImWwoG6mbUoWf9nzpIoaSjB+weqqUUmpaaasXVal72J+UX2B+2RPW3RcT0eOzQgqlJL3RKrTJvdsjE3JEAvGq3lGHSZXy28G3skua2SmVi/w4yCE6gbODqnTWlg7+wC604ydGXA8VJiS5ap43JXiUFFAaQ==
ssh.github.com,192.30.252.149 ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAQEAq2A7hRGmdnm9tUDbO9IDSwBK6TbQa+PXYPCPy6rbTrTtw7PHkccKrpp0yVhp5HdEIcKr6pLlVDBfOLX9QUsyCOV0wzfjIJNlGEYsdlLJizHhbn2mUjvSAHQqZETYP81eFzLQNnPHt4EVVUh7VfDESU84KezmD5QlWpXLmvU31/yMf+Se8xhHTvKSCZIFImWwoG6mbUoWf9nzpIoaSjB+weqqUUmpaaasXVal72J+UX2B+2RPW3RcT0eOzQgqlJL3RKrTJvdsjE3JEAvGq3lGHSZXy28G3skua2SmVi/w4yCE6gbODqnTWlg7+wC604ydGXA8VJiS5ap43JXiUFFAaQ==
No entanto, no OS X, esse arquivo não existe, o que aciona um erro. Esta solução mais simples é apenas pré-criar o arquivo com linhas como esta no OS X a partir de um script de shell.
Eu criei um problema com a equipe do Travis para este.