1 SSH-ADD(1) General Commands Manual SSH-ADD(1) 2 3 NAME 4 ssh-add M-bM-^@M-^S adds private key identities to the authentication agent 5 6 SYNOPSIS 7 ssh-add [-cDdkLlXx] [-E fingerprint_hash] [-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, ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 and 15 ~/.ssh/identity. After loading a private key, ssh-add will try to load 16 corresponding certificate information from the filename obtained by 17 appending -cert.pub to the name of the private key file. Alternative 18 file names can be given on the 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 ssh-askpass(1). Successful confirmation is signaled by a zero 33 exit status from ssh-askpass(1), rather than text entered into 34 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 and their corresponding certificates will be 41 removed. Otherwise, the argument list will be interpreted as a 42 list of paths to public key files to specify keys and 43 certificates to be removed from the agent. If no public key is 44 found at a given path, ssh-add will append .pub and retry. 45 46 -E fingerprint_hash 47 Specifies the hash algorithm used when displaying key 48 fingerprints. Valid options are: M-bM-^@M-^\md5M-bM-^@M-^] and M-bM-^@M-^\sha256M-bM-^@M-^]. The 49 default is M-bM-^@M-^\sha256M-bM-^@M-^]. 50 51 -e pkcs11 52 Remove keys provided by the PKCS#11 shared library pkcs11. 53 54 -k When loading keys into or deleting keys from the agent, process 55 plain private keys only and skip certificates. 56 57 -L Lists public key parameters of all identities currently 58 represented by the agent. 59 60 -l Lists fingerprints of all identities currently represented by the 61 agent. 62 63 -s pkcs11 64 Add keys provided by the PKCS#11 shared library pkcs11. 65 66 -t life 67 Set a maximum lifetime when adding identities to an agent. The 68 lifetime may be specified in seconds or in a time format 69 specified in sshd_config(5). 70 71 -X Unlock the agent. 72 73 -x Lock the agent with a password. 74 75 ENVIRONMENT 76 DISPLAY and SSH_ASKPASS 77 If ssh-add needs a passphrase, it will read the passphrase from 78 the current terminal if it was run from a terminal. If ssh-add 79 does not have a terminal associated with it but DISPLAY and 80 SSH_ASKPASS are set, it will execute the program specified by 81 SSH_ASKPASS (by default M-bM-^@M-^\ssh-askpassM-bM-^@M-^]) and open an X11 window to 82 read the passphrase. This is particularly useful when calling 83 ssh-add from a .xsession or related script. (Note that on some 84 machines it may be necessary to redirect the input from /dev/null 85 to make this work.) 86 87 SSH_AUTH_SOCK 88 Identifies the path of a UNIX-domain socket used to communicate 89 with the agent. 90 91 FILES 92 ~/.ssh/identity 93 Contains the protocol version 1 RSA authentication identity of 94 the user. 95 96 ~/.ssh/id_dsa 97 Contains the protocol version 2 DSA authentication identity of 98 the user. 99 100 ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa 101 Contains the protocol version 2 ECDSA authentication identity of 102 the user. 103 104 ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 105 Contains the protocol version 2 Ed25519 authentication identity 106 of the user. 107 108 ~/.ssh/id_rsa 109 Contains the protocol version 2 RSA authentication identity of 110 the user. 111 112 Identity files should not be readable by anyone but the user. Note that 113 ssh-add ignores identity files if they are accessible by others. 114 115 EXIT STATUS 116 Exit status is 0 on success, 1 if the specified command fails, and 2 if 117 ssh-add is unable to contact the authentication agent. 118 119 SEE ALSO 120 ssh(1), ssh-agent(1), ssh-askpass(1), ssh-keygen(1), sshd(8) 121 122 AUTHORS 123 OpenSSH is a derivative of the original and free ssh 1.2.12 release by 124 Tatu Ylonen. Aaron Campbell, Bob Beck, Markus Friedl, Niels Provos, Theo 125 de Raadt and Dug Song removed many bugs, re-added newer features and 126 created OpenSSH. Markus Friedl contributed the support for SSH protocol 127 versions 1.5 and 2.0. 128 129 OpenBSD 5.8 March 30, 2015 OpenBSD 5.8 130
