diff --git a/services/node-agent/src/node_agent.py b/services/node-agent/src/node_agent.py
index 75cb2e5..dbb9b61 100644
--- a/services/node-agent/src/node_agent.py
+++ b/services/node-agent/src/node_agent.py
@@ -472,7 +472,16 @@ class NodeAgent:
                       f"{VPS_EVENTS_PATH}/{self.node_name}/")
         cmd = [
             "rsync", "-az", "--remove-source-files",
-            "-e", "ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o ConnectTimeout=10 -o BatchMode=yes",
+            # -F /dev/null: skip ~/.ssh/config entirely.  The .ssh dir is
+            # mounted from the host oskar user into the container which runs
+            # as root; OpenSSH rejects config files owned by a different UID.
+            # UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null pairs with StrictHostKeyChecking=no
+            # so we never try to write a known_hosts inside a read-only mount.
+            "-e", ("ssh -F /dev/null"
+                   " -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no"
+                   " -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null"
+                   " -o ConnectTimeout=10"
+                   " -o BatchMode=yes"),
             local_dir,
             remote_dir,
         ]