SSH-ADD(1) BSD General Commands Manual SSH-ADD(1)
NAME
ssh-add — adds private key identities to the authentication agent
SYNOPSIS
ssh-add [-cDdkLlXx] [-t life] [file ...]
ssh-add -s pkcs11
ssh-add -e pkcs11
DESCRIPTION
ssh-add adds private key identities to the authentication agent, ssh-agent(1). When run without arguments, it
adds the files ~/.ssh/id_rsa, ~/.ssh/id_dsa, ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa, ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 and ~/.ssh/identity. After
loading a private key, ssh-add will try to load corresponding certificate information from the filename obtained
by appending -cert.pub to the name of the private key file. 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 the SSH_AUTH_SOCK environment variable must contain the name of its
socket for ssh-add to work.
The options are as follows:
-c Indicates that added identities should be subject to confirmation before being used for authentication.
Confirmation is performed by the SSH_ASKPASS program mentioned below. Successful confirmation is sig‐
naled by a zero exit status from the SSH_ASKPASS program, rather than text entered into the requester.
-D Deletes all identities from the agent.
-d Instead of adding identities, removes identities from the agent. If ssh-add has been run without argu‐
ments, the keys for the default identities and their corresponding certificates will be removed. Other‐
wise, the argument list will be interpreted as a list of paths to public key files to specify keys and
certificates to be removed from the agent. If no public key is found at a given path, ssh-add will
append .pub and retry.
-e pkcs11
Remove keys provided by the PKCS#11 shared library pkcs11.
-k When loading keys into or deleting keys from the agent, process plain private keys only and skip cer‐
tificates.
-L Lists public key parameters of all identities currently represented by the agent.
-l Lists fingerprints of all identities currently represented by the agent.
-s pkcs11
Add keys provided by the PKCS#11 shared library pkcs11.
-t life
Set a maximum lifetime when adding identities to an agent. The lifetime may be specified in seconds or
in a time format specified in sshd_config(5).
-X Unlock the agent.
-x Lock the agent with a password.
ENVIRONMENT
DISPLAY and SSH_ASKPASS
reseeded from /dev/random. The number of bytes read is defined by the SSH_USE_STRONG_RNG value. Mini‐
mum is 14 bytes. This setting is not recommended on the computers without the hardware random generator
because insufficient entropy causes the connection to be blocked until enough entropy is available.
FILES
~/.ssh/identity
Contains the protocol version 1 RSA authentication identity of the user.
~/.ssh/id_dsa
Contains the protocol version 2 DSA authentication identity of the user.
~/.ssh/id_ecdsa
Contains the protocol version 2 ECDSA authentication identity of the user.
~/.ssh/id_ed25519
Contains the protocol version 2 ED25519 authentication identity of the user.
~/.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.
EXIT STATUS
Exit status is 0 on success, 1 if the specified command fails, and 2 if ssh-add is unable to contact the authen‐
tication agent.
SEE ALSO
ssh(1), ssh-agent(1), ssh-keygen(1), sshd(8)
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 created
OpenSSH. Markus Friedl contributed the support for SSH protocol versions 1.5 and 2.0.
BSD June 13, 2017 BSD
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