In order for camel to connect to a remote host, it needs to already have seen the fingerprint of the host and record it in a known_hosts file, just like .ssh/known_hosts .
I get the setting from this file from a field in a database which is too small to contain the complete url… If I could symbolic link the .ssh file to the default location where the sftp endpoint is looking, I would not have to specify it in the URL and the url will fit in the column and life will be beautiful.
The question is where does camel expects this file to be?
I digged somewhat deeper and the answer is : null, there is no default.
The parameter is defined but not initialised to anything. In newer versions of Camel this is less of an issue because the checkKnownHosts option is turned off. In older version the default is ask, which is rather silly for something which is supposed to run unattended.