ERROR: "Error occurred fetching gitfs remote 'git@####/###.git': error loading known_hosts:" seen in salt master logs when establishing GitFS connection

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)

Issue/Introduction

• This error trace is seen in the salt-master logs:
  • salt-master[####]: [ERROR   ] Error occurred fetching gitfs remote '[email protected]/example-repo.git': error loading known_hosts:
salt-master[####]: Traceback (most recent call last):
salt-master[####]:   File "/opt/saltstack/salt/lib/python3.10/site-packages/salt/utils/gitfs.py", line 2136, in _fetch
salt-master[####]:     fetch_results = origin.fetch(**fetch_kwargs)
salt-master[####]:   File "/opt/saltstack/salt/extras-3.10/pygit2/remotes.py", line 245, in fetch
salt-master[####]:     payload.check_error(err)
salt-master[####]:   File "/opt/saltstack/salt/extras-3.10/pygit2/callbacks.py", line 111, in check_error
salt-master[####]:     check_error(error_code)
salt-master[####]:   File "/opt/saltstack/salt/extras-3.10/pygit2/errors.py", line 67, in check_error
salt-master[####]:     raise GitError(message)
salt-master[####]: _pygit2.GitError: error loading known_hosts:
    
    
• Assets such as pillars, grains and states to be fetched through the git filesystem backend are not shown in the Aria Config GUI

Environment

• VMware Aria Automation Config (Saltstack Enterprise / Tanzu Guardrails for Workloads)
• External git server for files hosted with GitFS

Resolution

The issue is resolved with Salt version 3006.17

Workaround:

Downgrade pygit2 to version 1.11.1

Issues with either PyGit2 or GitPython are sometimes seen to be solved by switching from one to the other of these git libraries.

Additional Information

Github Issue:

_pygit2.GitError: error loading known_hosts