1SSH-ADD(1) BSD General Commands Manual SSH-ADD(1)
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4 ssh-add — adds private key identities to the OpenSSH authentication agent
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7 ssh-add [-cDdKkLlqvXx] [-E fingerprint_hash] [-S provider] [-t life]
8 [file ...]
9 ssh-add -s pkcs11
10 ssh-add -e pkcs11
11 ssh-add -T pubkey ...
12
14 ssh-add adds private key identities to the authentication agent,
15 ssh-agent(1). When run without arguments, it adds the files
16 ~/.ssh/id_rsa, ~/.ssh/id_dsa, ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa, ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa_sk,
17 ~/.ssh/id_ed25519, and ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_sk. After loading a private
18 key, ssh-add will try to load corresponding certificate information from
19 the filename obtained by appending -cert.pub to the name of the private
20 key file. Alternative file names can be given on the command line.
21 If any file requires a passphrase, ssh-add asks for the passphrase from
23 the user. The passphrase is read from the user's tty. ssh-add retries
24 the last passphrase if multiple identity files are given.
25 The authentication agent must be running and the SSH_AUTH_SOCK environ‐
27 ment variable must contain the name of its socket for ssh-add to work.
28 The options are as follows:
30 -c Indicates that added identities should be subject to confirmation
32 before being used for authentication. Confirmation is performed
33 by ssh-askpass(1). Successful confirmation is signaled by a zero
34 exit status from ssh-askpass(1), rather than text entered into
35 the requester.
36 -D Deletes all identities from the agent.
38 -d Instead of adding identities, removes identities from the agent.
40 If ssh-add has been run without arguments, the keys for the
41 default identities and their corresponding certificates will be
42 removed. Otherwise, the argument list will be interpreted as a
43 list of paths to public key files to specify keys and certifi‐
44 cates to be removed from the agent. If no public key is found at
45 a given path, ssh-add will append .pub and retry.
46 -E fingerprint_hash
48 Specifies the hash algorithm used when displaying key finger‐
49 prints. Valid options are: “md5” and “sha256”. The default is
50 “sha256”.
51 -e pkcs11
53 Remove keys provided by the PKCS#11 shared library pkcs11.
54 -K Load resident keys from a FIDO authenticator.
56 -k When loading keys into or deleting keys from the agent, process
58 plain private keys only and skip certificates.
59 -L Lists public key parameters of all identities currently repre‐
61 sented by the agent.
62 -l Lists fingerprints of all identities currently represented by the
64 agent.
65 -q Be quiet after a successful operation.
67 -S provider
69 Specifies a path to a library that will be used when adding FIDO
70 authenticator-hosted keys, overriding the default of using the
71 internal USB HID support.
72 -s pkcs11
74 Add keys provided by the PKCS#11 shared library pkcs11.
75 -T pubkey ...
77 Tests whether the private keys that correspond to the specified
78 pubkey files are usable by performing sign and verify operations
79 on each.
80 -t life
82 Set a maximum lifetime when adding identities to an agent. The
83 lifetime may be specified in seconds or in a time format speci‐
84 fied in sshd_config(5).
85 -v Verbose mode. Causes ssh-add to print debugging messages about
87 its progress. This is helpful in debugging problems. Multiple
88 -v options increase the verbosity. The maximum is 3.
89 -X Unlock the agent.
91 -x Lock the agent with a password.
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95 DISPLAY and SSH_ASKPASS
96 If ssh-add needs a passphrase, it will read the passphrase from
97 the current terminal if it was run from a terminal. If ssh-add
98 does not have a terminal associated with it but DISPLAY and
99 SSH_ASKPASS are set, it will execute the program specified by
100 SSH_ASKPASS (by default “ssh-askpass”) and open an X11 window to
101 read the passphrase. This is particularly useful when calling
102 ssh-add from a .xsession or related script. (Note that on some
103 machines it may be necessary to redirect the input from /dev/null
104 to make this work.)
105 SSH_AUTH_SOCK
107 Identifies the path of a UNIX-domain socket used to communicate
108 with the agent.
109 SSH_SK_PROVIDER
111 Specifies a path to a library that will be used when loading any
112 FIDO authenticator-hosted keys, overriding the default of using
113 the built-in USB HID support.
114
116 ~/.ssh/id_dsa
117 ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa
118 ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa_sk
119 ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
120 ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_sk
121 ~/.ssh/id_rsa
122 Contains the DSA, ECDSA, authenticator-hosted ECDSA, Ed25519,
123 authenticator-hosted Ed25519 or RSA authentication identity of
124 the user.
125 Identity files should not be readable by anyone but the user. Note that
127 ssh-add ignores identity files if they are accessible by others.
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130 Exit status is 0 on success, 1 if the specified command fails, and 2 if
131 ssh-add is unable to contact the authentication agent.
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134 ssh(1), ssh-agent(1), ssh-askpass(1), ssh-keygen(1), sshd(8)
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137 OpenSSH is a derivative of the original and free ssh 1.2.12 release by
138 Tatu Ylonen. Aaron Campbell, Bob Beck, Markus Friedl, Niels Provos, Theo
139 de Raadt and Dug Song removed many bugs, re-added newer features and cre‐
140 ated OpenSSH. Markus Friedl contributed the support for SSH protocol
141 versions 1.5 and 2.0.
142BSD May 10, 2020 BSD