Net::SSH::Perl won't set SSH options?

Hi folks,
 
I have a test script that remotely runs a command via SSH. The problem
is that I get prompted to accept a host key if it's missing from my
known_hosts file.
The ssh option StrictHostKeyChecking if set to 'no' is supposed to
accept a missing host key. I've tested this and it works from a command
line, but 
I can't get the following code to do the same. (I don't think the
ConnectTimeout works correctly either, FYI).
 
Can anyone see what I'm doing wrong?
 
Thanks!
 
richf
 
#!/usr/local/bin/perl 
use warnings;
use strict;
use Net::SSH::Perl;
 
my %config = (
server              => 'server',
passwords       => [qw(foo bar)],
command        => 'who',
user                => 'root',
);
 
my $output = collect_data_over_ssh(\%config);
print "\n\n", @$output, "\n\n";
 
sub collect_data_over_ssh {
my $config = shift;
 
my $server              = $config->{server};
my $passwords   = $config->{passwords};         # array ref
my $command             = $config->{command};
my $user                = $config->{user};
 
my @output;
my $stdout;
my $stderr;
my $exit;
 
my %options = (
debug => 1,
options => [
"ConnectTimeout 3",
"StrictHostKeyChecking no",
],
);
 
 
PASSWD:
for my $pass (@$passwords) {
 
my $ssh = Net::SSH::Perl->new($server, %options) or warn
"Can't connect via SSH $!\n";
 
eval {
$ssh->login($user, $pass);
};
next PASSWD if ($@);
 
($stdout, $stderr, $exit) = $ssh->cmd($command);
 
if ($stdout) {
@output = $stdout;
}
else {
@output = $stderr;
}
last PASSWD;
}
return \@output;
}