1 SSH-ADD(1) OpenBSD Reference Manual SSH-ADD(1) 2 3 NAME 4 ssh-add - adds private key identities to the authentication agent 5 6 SYNOPSIS 7 ssh-add [-cDdLlXx] [-t life] [file ...] 8 ssh-add -s pkcs11 9 ssh-add -e pkcs11 10 11 DESCRIPTION 12 ssh-add adds private key identities to the authentication agent, 13 ssh-agent(1). When run without arguments, it adds the files 14 ~/.ssh/id_rsa, ~/.ssh/id_dsa, ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa and ~/.ssh/identity. After 15 loading a private key, ssh-add will try to load corresponding certificate 16 information from the filename obtained by appending -cert.pub to the name 17 of the private key file. Alternative file names can be given on the 18 command line. 19 20 If any file requires a passphrase, ssh-add asks for the passphrase from 21 the user. The passphrase is read from the user's tty. ssh-add retries 22 the last passphrase if multiple identity files are given. 23 24 The authentication agent must be running and the SSH_AUTH_SOCK 25 environment variable must contain the name of its socket for ssh-add to 26 work. 27 28 The options are as follows: 29 30 -c Indicates that added identities should be subject to confirmation 31 before being used for authentication. Confirmation is performed 32 by the SSH_ASKPASS program mentioned below. Successful 33 confirmation is signaled by a zero exit status from the 34 SSH_ASKPASS program, rather than text entered into the requester. 35 36 -D Deletes all identities from the agent. 37 38 -d Instead of adding identities, removes identities from the agent. 39 If ssh-add has been run without arguments, the keys for the 40 default identities will be removed. Otherwise, the argument list 41 will be interpreted as a list of paths to public key files and 42 matching keys will be removed from the agent. If no public key 43 is found at a given path, ssh-add will append .pub and retry. 44 45 -e pkcs11 46 Remove keys provided by the PKCS#11 shared library pkcs11. 47 48 -L Lists public key parameters of all identities currently 49 represented by the agent. 50 51 -l Lists fingerprints of all identities currently represented by the 52 agent. 53 54 -s pkcs11 55 Add keys provided by the PKCS#11 shared library pkcs11. 56 57 -t life 58 Set a maximum lifetime when adding identities to an agent. The 59 lifetime may be specified in seconds or in a time format 60 specified in sshd_config(5). 61 62 -X Unlock the agent. 63 64 -x Lock the agent with a password. 65 66 ENVIRONMENT 67 DISPLAY and SSH_ASKPASS 68 If ssh-add needs a passphrase, it will read the passphrase from 69 the current terminal if it was run from a terminal. If ssh-add 70 does not have a terminal associated with it but DISPLAY and 71 SSH_ASKPASS are set, it will execute the program specified by 72 SSH_ASKPASS and open an X11 window to read the passphrase. This 73 is particularly useful when calling ssh-add from a .xsession or 74 related script. (Note that on some machines it may be necessary 75 to redirect the input from /dev/null to make this work.) 76 77 SSH_AUTH_SOCK 78 Identifies the path of a UNIX-domain socket used to communicate 79 with the agent. 80 81 FILES 82 ~/.ssh/identity 83 Contains the protocol version 1 RSA authentication identity of 84 the user. 85 86 ~/.ssh/id_dsa 87 Contains the protocol version 2 DSA authentication identity of 88 the user. 89 90 ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa 91 Contains the protocol version 2 ECDSA authentication identity of 92 the user. 93 94 ~/.ssh/id_rsa 95 Contains the protocol version 2 RSA authentication identity of 96 the user. 97 98 Identity files should not be readable by anyone but the user. Note that 99 ssh-add ignores identity files if they are accessible by others. 100 101 EXIT STATUS 102 Exit status is 0 on success, 1 if the specified command fails, and 2 if 103 ssh-add is unable to contact the authentication agent. 104 105 SEE ALSO 106 ssh(1), ssh-agent(1), ssh-keygen(1), sshd(8) 107 108 AUTHORS 109 OpenSSH is a derivative of the original and free ssh 1.2.12 release by 110 Tatu Ylonen. Aaron Campbell, Bob Beck, Markus Friedl, Niels Provos, Theo 111 de Raadt and Dug Song removed many bugs, re-added newer features and 112 created OpenSSH. Markus Friedl contributed the support for SSH protocol 113 versions 1.5 and 2.0. 114 115 OpenBSD 5.0 October 28, 2010 OpenBSD 5.0 116