NAME
ssh-add - adds RSA or DSA identities to the authentication agent
SYNOPSIS
ssh-add [-cDdLlXx] [-t life] [] ssh-add -s reader ssh-add -e reader
DESCRIPTION
ssh-add adds RSA or DSA identities to the authentication agent, ssh-agent(1). When run without arguments, it adds the files
~/.ssh/id_rsa,
~/.ssh/id_dsaand
~/.ssh/identity. Alternative file names can be given on the command line. If any file requires a passphrase, ssh-add asks for the passphrase from the user. The passphrase is read from the user’s tty. ssh-add retries the last passphrase if multiple identity files are given.
The authentication agent must be running and the SSH_AUTH_SOCK environment variable must contain the name of its socket for ssh-add to work.
The options are as follows:
| -c | Indicates that added identities should be subject to confirmation before being used for authentication. Confirmation is performed by the SSH_ASKPASS program mentioned below. Successful confirmation is signaled by a zero exit status from the SSH_ASKPASS program, rather than text entered into the requester. |
| -D | Deletes all identities from the agent. |
| -d | Instead of adding identities, removes identities from the agent.
If
ssh-add
has been run without arguments, the keys for the default identities will
be removed.
Otherwise, the argument list will be interpreted as a list of paths to
public key files and matching keys will be removed from the agent.
If no public key is found at a given path,
ssh-add
will append
.puband retry. |
| -e reader | |
| Remove key in smartcard reader. | |
| -L | Lists public key parameters of all identities currently represented by the agent. |
| -l | Lists fingerprints of all identities currently represented by the agent. |
| -s reader | |
| Add key in smartcard reader. | |
| -t life | |
| Set a maximum lifetime when adding identities to an agent. The lifetime may be specified in seconds or in a time format specified in sshd_config(5). | |
| -X | Unlock the agent. |
| -x | Lock the agent with a password. |
ENVIRONMENT
| DISPLAY and SSH_ASKPASS | |
If
ssh-add
needs a passphrase, it will read the passphrase from the current
terminal if it was run from a terminal.
If
ssh-add
does not have a terminal associated with it but
DISPLAY
and
SSH_ASKPASS
are set, it will execute the program specified by
SSH_ASKPASS
and open an X11 window to read the passphrase.
This is particularly useful when calling
ssh-add
from a
.xsessionor related script. (Note that on some machines it may be necessary to redirect the input from /dev/nullto make this work.) | |
| SSH_AUTH_SOCK | |
| Identifies the path of a unix-domain socket used to communicate with the agent. | |
FILES
~/.ssh/identity | |
| Contains the protocol version 1 RSA authentication identity of the user. | |
~/.ssh/id_dsa | |
| Contains the protocol version 2 DSA authentication identity of the user. | |
~/.ssh/id_rsa | |
| Contains the protocol version 2 RSA authentication identity of the user. | |
Identity files should not be readable by anyone but the user. Note that ssh-add ignores identity files if they are accessible by others.
DIAGNOSTICS
Exit status is 0 on success, 1 if the specified command fails, and 2 if ssh-add is unable to contact the authentication agent.
SEE ALSO
ssh(1), ssh-agent(1), ssh-keygen(1), sshd(8)
AUTHORS
OpenSSH is a derivative of the original and free ssh 1.2.12 release by Tatu Ylonen. Aaron Campbell, Bob Beck, Markus Friedl, Niels Provos, Theo de Raadt and Dug Song removed many bugs, re-added newer features and created OpenSSH. Markus Friedl contributed the support for SSH protocol versions 1.5 and 2.0.
