ssh-add.0 revision 225825 
1SSH-ADD(1)                 OpenBSD Reference Manual                 SSH-ADD(1)
2
3NAME
4     ssh-add - adds private key identities to the authentication agent
5
6SYNOPSIS
7     ssh-add [-cDdLlXx] [-t life] [file ...]
8     ssh-add -s pkcs11
9     ssh-add -e pkcs11
10
11DESCRIPTION
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 and ~/.ssh/identity.  After
15     loading a private key, ssh-add will try to load corresponding certificate
16     information from the filename obtained by appending -cert.pub to the name
17     of the private key file.  Alternative file names can be given on the
18     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 the SSH_ASKPASS program mentioned below.  Successful
33             confirmation is signaled by a zero exit status from the
34             SSH_ASKPASS program, rather than text entered into 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 will be removed.  Otherwise, the argument list
41             will be interpreted as a list of paths to public key files and
42             matching keys will be removed from the agent.  If no public key
43             is found at a given path, ssh-add will append .pub and retry.
44
45     -e pkcs11
46             Remove keys provided by the PKCS#11 shared library pkcs11.
47
48     -L      Lists public key parameters of all identities currently
49             represented by the agent.
50
51     -l      Lists fingerprints of all identities currently represented by the
52             agent.
53
54     -s pkcs11
55             Add keys provided by the PKCS#11 shared library pkcs11.
56
57     -t life
58             Set a maximum lifetime when adding identities to an agent.  The
59             lifetime may be specified in seconds or in a time format
60             specified in sshd_config(5).
61
62     -X      Unlock the agent.
63
64     -x      Lock the agent with a password.
65
66ENVIRONMENT
67     DISPLAY and SSH_ASKPASS
68             If ssh-add needs a passphrase, it will read the passphrase from
69             the current terminal if it was run from a terminal.  If ssh-add
70             does not have a terminal associated with it but DISPLAY and
71             SSH_ASKPASS are set, it will execute the program specified by
72             SSH_ASKPASS and open an X11 window to read the passphrase.  This
73             is particularly useful when calling ssh-add from a .xsession or
74             related script.  (Note that on some machines it may be necessary
75             to redirect the input from /dev/null to make this work.)
76
77     SSH_AUTH_SOCK
78             Identifies the path of a UNIX-domain socket used to communicate
79             with the agent.
80
81FILES
82     ~/.ssh/identity
83             Contains the protocol version 1 RSA authentication identity of
84             the user.
85
86     ~/.ssh/id_dsa
87             Contains the protocol version 2 DSA authentication identity of
88             the user.
89
90     ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa
91             Contains the protocol version 2 ECDSA authentication identity of
92             the user.
93
94     ~/.ssh/id_rsa
95             Contains the protocol version 2 RSA authentication identity of
96             the user.
97
98     Identity files should not be readable by anyone but the user.  Note that
99     ssh-add ignores identity files if they are accessible by others.
100
101EXIT STATUS
102     Exit status is 0 on success, 1 if the specified command fails, and 2 if
103     ssh-add is unable to contact the authentication agent.
104
105SEE ALSO
106     ssh(1), ssh-agent(1), ssh-keygen(1), sshd(8)
107
108AUTHORS
109     OpenSSH is a derivative of the original and free ssh 1.2.12 release by
110     Tatu Ylonen.  Aaron Campbell, Bob Beck, Markus Friedl, Niels Provos, Theo
111     de Raadt and Dug Song removed many bugs, re-added newer features and
112     created OpenSSH.  Markus Friedl contributed the support for SSH protocol
113     versions 1.5 and 2.0.
114
115OpenBSD 5.0                    October 28, 2010                    OpenBSD 5.0
116