Manual Pages: ssh-add

## Manual Pages

    SSH-ADD(1)                 OpenBSD Reference Manual                 SSH-ADD(1)

    NAME
         ssh-add - adds RSA or DSA identities to the authentication agent

    SYNOPSIS
         ssh-add [-lLdDxX] [-t life] [file ...]
         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
         $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa, $HOME/.ssh/id_dsa and $HOME/.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 must be an ancestor of the
         current process for ssh-add to work.

         The options are as follows:

         -l      Lists fingerprints of all identities currently represented by the
                 agent.

         -L      Lists public key parameters of all identities currently repre-
                 sented by the agent.

         -d      Instead of adding the identity, removes the identity from the
                 agent.

         -D      Deletes all identities from the agent.

         -x      Lock the agent with a password.

         -X      Unlock the agent.

         -t life
                 Set a maximum lifetime when adding identities to an agent.  The
                 lifetime may be specified in seconds or in a time format speci-
                 fied in sshd(8).

         -s reader
                 Add key in smartcard reader.

         -e reader
                 Remove key in smartcard reader.

    FILES
         $HOME/.ssh/identity
                 Contains the protocol version 1 RSA authentication identity of
                 the user.

         $HOME/.ssh/id_dsa
                 Contains the protocol version 2 DSA authentication identity of
                 the user.

         $HOME/.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.

    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 .Xsession or
                 related script.  (Note that on some machines it may be necessary
                 to redirect the input from /dev/null to make this work.)

         SSH_AUTH_SOCK
                 Identifies the path of a unix-domain socket used to communicate
                 with the agent.

    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.

    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 cre-
         ated OpenSSH.  Markus Friedl contributed the support for SSH protocol
         versions 1.5 and 2.0.

    SEE ALSO
         ssh(1), ssh-agent(1), ssh-keygen(1), sshd(8)

    OpenBSD 3.1                   September 25, 1999                             2

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | FILES | ENVIRONMENT | DIAGNOSTICS | AUTHORS | SEE ALSO