ssh-add.0 revision 189006 
1SSH-ADD(1)                 OpenBSD Reference Manual                 SSH-ADD(1)
2
3NAME
4     ssh-add - adds RSA or DSA identities to the authentication agent
5
6SYNOPSIS
7     ssh-add [-cDdLlXx] [-t life] [file ...]
8     ssh-add -s reader
9     ssh-add -e reader
10
11DESCRIPTION
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
20     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
23     The options are as follows:
24
25     -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
31     -D      Deletes all identities from the agent.
32
33     -d      Instead of adding identities, removes identities from the agent.
34             If ssh-add has been run without arguments, the keys for the de-
35             fault identities will be removed.  Otherwise, the argument list
36             will be interpreted as a list of paths to public key files and
37             matching keys will be removed from the agent.  If no public key
38             is found at a given path, ssh-add will append .pub and retry.
39
40     -e reader
41             Remove key in smartcard reader.
42
43     -L      Lists public key parameters of all identities currently repre-
44             sented by the agent.
45
46     -l      Lists fingerprints of all identities currently represented by the
47             agent.
48
49     -s reader
50             Add key in smartcard reader.
51
52     -t life
53             Set a maximum lifetime when adding identities to an agent.  The
54             lifetime may be specified in seconds or in a time format speci-
55             fied in sshd_config(5).
56
57     -X      Unlock the agent.
58
59     -x      Lock the agent with a password.
60
61ENVIRONMENT
62     DISPLAY and SSH_ASKPASS
63             If ssh-add needs a passphrase, it will read the passphrase from
64             the current terminal if it was run from a terminal.  If ssh-add
65             does not have a terminal associated with it but DISPLAY and
66             SSH_ASKPASS are set, it will execute the program specified by
67             SSH_ASKPASS and open an X11 window to read the passphrase.  This
68             is particularly useful when calling ssh-add from a .xsession or
69             related script.  (Note that on some machines it may be necessary
70             to redirect the input from /dev/null to make this work.)
71
72     SSH_AUTH_SOCK
73             Identifies the path of a unix-domain socket used to communicate
74             with the agent.
75
76FILES
77     ~/.ssh/identity
78             Contains the protocol version 1 RSA authentication identity of
79             the user.
80
81     ~/.ssh/id_dsa
82             Contains the protocol version 2 DSA authentication identity of
83             the user.
84
85     ~/.ssh/id_rsa
86             Contains the protocol version 2 RSA authentication identity of
87             the user.
88
89     Identity files should not be readable by anyone but the user.  Note that
90     ssh-add ignores identity files if they are accessible by others.
91
92DIAGNOSTICS
93     Exit status is 0 on success, 1 if the specified command fails, and 2 if
94     ssh-add is unable to contact the authentication agent.
95
96SEE ALSO
97     ssh(1), ssh-agent(1), ssh-keygen(1), sshd(8)
98
99AUTHORS
100     OpenSSH is a derivative of the original and free ssh 1.2.12 release by
101     Tatu Ylonen.  Aaron Campbell, Bob Beck, Markus Friedl, Niels Provos, Theo
102     de Raadt and Dug Song removed many bugs, re-added newer features and cre-
103     ated OpenSSH.  Markus Friedl contributed the support for SSH protocol
104     versions 1.5 and 2.0.
105
106OpenBSD 4.5                      June 12, 2007                               2
107