1SSH-ADD(1) BSD General Commands Manual SSH-ADD(1)
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4 ssh-add — adds RSA or DSA identities to the authentication agent
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7 ssh-add [-cDdLlXx] [-t life] [file ...]
8 ssh-add -s reader
9 ssh-add -e reader
10
12 ssh-add adds RSA or DSA identities to the authentication agent,
13 ssh-agent(1). When run without arguments, it adds the files
14 ~/.ssh/id_rsa, ~/.ssh/id_dsa and ~/.ssh/identity. Alternative file names
15 can be given on the command line. If any file requires a passphrase,
16 ssh-add asks for the passphrase from the user. The passphrase is read
17 from the user's tty. ssh-add retries the last passphrase if multiple
18 identity files are given.
19 The authentication agent must be running and the SSH_AUTH_SOCK environ‐
21 ment variable must contain the name of its socket for ssh-add to work.
22 The options are as follows:
24 -c Indicates that added identities should be subject to confirmation
26 before being used for authentication. Confirmation is performed
27 by the SSH_ASKPASS program mentioned below. Successful confirma‐
28 tion is signaled by a zero exit status from the SSH_ASKPASS pro‐
29 gram, rather than text entered into the requester.
30 -D Deletes all identities from the agent.
32 -d Instead of adding the identity, removes the identity from the
34 agent.
35 -e reader
37 Remove key in smartcard reader.
38 -L Lists public key parameters of all identities currently repre‐
40 sented by the agent.
41 -l Lists fingerprints of all identities currently represented by the
43 agent.
44 -s reader
46 Add key in smartcard reader.
47 -t life
49 Set a maximum lifetime when adding identities to an agent. The
50 lifetime may be specified in seconds or in a time format speci‐
51 fied in sshd_config(5).
52 -X Unlock the agent.
54 -x Lock the agent with a password.
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58 DISPLAY and SSH_ASKPASS
59 If ssh-add needs a passphrase, it will read the passphrase from
60 the current terminal if it was run from a terminal. If ssh-add
61 does not have a terminal associated with it but DISPLAY and
62 SSH_ASKPASS are set, it will execute the program specified by
63 SSH_ASKPASS and open an X11 window to read the passphrase. This
64 is particularly useful when calling ssh-add from a .xsession or
65 related script. (Note that on some machines it may be necessary
66 to redirect the input from /dev/null to make this work.)
67 SSH_AUTH_SOCK
69 Identifies the path of a unix-domain socket used to communicate
70 with the agent.
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73 ~/.ssh/identity
74 Contains the protocol version 1 RSA authentication identity of
75 the user.
76 ~/.ssh/id_dsa
78 Contains the protocol version 2 DSA authentication identity of
79 the user.
80 ~/.ssh/id_rsa
82 Contains the protocol version 2 RSA authentication identity of
83 the user.
84 Identity files should not be readable by anyone but the user. Note that
86 ssh-add ignores identity files if they are accessible by others.
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89 Exit status is 0 on success, 1 if the specified command fails, and 2 if
90 ssh-add is unable to contact the authentication agent.
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93 ssh(1), ssh-agent(1), ssh-keygen(1), sshd(8)
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96 OpenSSH is a derivative of the original and free ssh 1.2.12 release by
97 Tatu Ylonen. Aaron Campbell, Bob Beck, Markus Friedl, Niels Provos, Theo
98 de Raadt and Dug Song removed many bugs, re-added newer features and cre‐
99 ated OpenSSH. Markus Friedl contributed the support for SSH protocol
100 versions 1.5 and 2.0.
101BSD September 25, 1999 BSD