In the openssh mailing list already that discussion started, https://lists.gt.net/openssh/dev/74450

Where it was suggested that it would be preferred to keep sshkey_load_private() as a wrapper.

If this is the case could we explore if we could make sshkey_load_private as a macro, so that its client users would not get impacted and they will have this wrapper functionality available to them.

If this idea seems ok, then could this approach be implemented like below:

jitendra@clear-linux~/openssh-portable $ git diff 
diff --git a/authfile.c b/authfile.c 
index 5e335ce4..89b5ca39 100644 
--- a/authfile.c 
+++ b/authfile.c 
@@ -215,44 +215,6 @@ sshkey_load_private_type_fd(int fd, int type, const char *passphrase, 
return r; 
} 

-/* XXX this is almost identical to sshkey_load_private_type() */ 
-int 
-sshkey_load_private(const char *filename, const char *passphrase, 
- struct sshkey **keyp, char **commentp) 
-{ 
- struct sshbuf *buffer = NULL; 
- int r, fd; 
- 
- if (keyp != NULL) 
- *keyp = NULL; 
- if (commentp != NULL) 
- *commentp = NULL; 
- 
- if ((fd = open(filename, O_RDONLY)) == -1) 
- return SSH_ERR_SYSTEM_ERROR; 
- if (sshkey_perm_ok(fd, filename) != 0) { 
- r = SSH_ERR_KEY_BAD_PERMISSIONS; 
- goto out; 
- } 
- 
- if ((buffer = sshbuf_new()) == NULL) { 
- r = SSH_ERR_ALLOC_FAIL; 
- goto out; 
- } 
- if ((r = sshkey_load_file(fd, buffer)) != 0 || 
- (r = sshkey_parse_private_fileblob(buffer, passphrase, keyp, 
- commentp)) != 0) 
- goto out; 
- if (keyp && *keyp && 
- (r = sshkey_set_filename(*keyp, filename)) != 0) 
- goto out; 
- r = 0; 
- out: 
- close(fd); 
- sshbuf_free(buffer); 
- return r; 
-} 
- 
static int 
sshkey_try_load_public(struct sshkey *k, const char *filename, char **commentp) 
{ 
diff --git a/authfile.h b/authfile.h 
index 54df169b..2962fbba 100644 
--- a/authfile.h 
+++ b/authfile.h 
@@ -30,6 +30,9 @@ 
struct sshbuf; 
struct sshkey; 

+#define sshkey_load_private(filename, passphrase, keyp, commentp) \ 
+ sshkey_load_private_type(KEY_UNSPEC, filename, passphrase, keyp, commentp) 
+ 
/* XXX document these */ 
/* XXX some of these could probably be merged/retired */ 

@@ -38,7 +41,6 @@ int sshkey_save_private(struct sshkey *, const char *, 
int sshkey_load_file(int, struct sshbuf *); 
int sshkey_load_cert(const char *, struct sshkey **); 
int sshkey_load_public(const char *, struct sshkey **, char **); 
-int sshkey_load_private(const char *, const char *, struct sshkey **, char **); 
int sshkey_load_private_cert(int, const char *, const char *, 
struct sshkey **); 
int sshkey_load_private_type(int, const char *, const char *, 
(END)

sshkey_load_private() was removed back in April

Mass close of all bugs fixed in 8.4 release.