1 SSH-ADD(1) General Commands Manual SSH-ADD(1)
4 ssh-add M-bM-^@M-^S adds private key identities to the authentication agent
7 ssh-add [-cDdkLlXx] [-E fingerprint_hash] [-t life] [file ...]
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, ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 and
15 ~/.ssh/identity. After loading a private key, ssh-add will try to load
16 corresponding certificate information from the filename obtained by
17 appending -cert.pub to the name of the private key file. Alternative
18 file names can be given on the command line.
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.
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
28 The options are as follows:
30 -c Indicates that added identities should be subject to confirmation
31 before being used for authentication. Confirmation is performed
32 by ssh-askpass(1). Successful confirmation is signaled by a zero
33 exit status from ssh-askpass(1), rather than text entered into
36 -D Deletes all identities from the agent.
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 and their corresponding certificates will be
41 removed. Otherwise, the argument list will be interpreted as a
42 list of paths to public key files to specify keys and
43 certificates to be removed from the agent. If no public key is
44 found at a given path, ssh-add will append .pub and retry.
47 Specifies the hash algorithm used when displaying key
48 fingerprints. Valid options are: M-bM-^@M-^\md5M-bM-^@M-^] and M-bM-^@M-^\sha256M-bM-^@M-^]. The
49 default is M-bM-^@M-^\sha256M-bM-^@M-^].
52 Remove keys provided by the PKCS#11 shared library pkcs11.
54 -k When loading keys into or deleting keys from the agent, process
55 plain private keys only and skip certificates.
57 -L Lists public key parameters of all identities currently
58 represented by the agent.
60 -l Lists fingerprints of all identities currently represented by the
64 Add keys provided by the PKCS#11 shared library pkcs11.
67 Set a maximum lifetime when adding identities to an agent. The
68 lifetime may be specified in seconds or in a time format
69 specified in sshd_config(5).
73 -x Lock the agent with a password.
76 DISPLAY and SSH_ASKPASS
77 If ssh-add needs a passphrase, it will read the passphrase from
78 the current terminal if it was run from a terminal. If ssh-add
79 does not have a terminal associated with it but DISPLAY and
80 SSH_ASKPASS are set, it will execute the program specified by
81 SSH_ASKPASS (by default M-bM-^@M-^\ssh-askpassM-bM-^@M-^]) and open an X11 window to
82 read the passphrase. This is particularly useful when calling
83 ssh-add from a .xsession or related script. (Note that on some
84 machines it may be necessary to redirect the input from /dev/null
88 Identifies the path of a UNIX-domain socket used to communicate
93 Contains the protocol version 1 RSA authentication identity of
97 Contains the protocol version 2 DSA authentication identity of
101 Contains the protocol version 2 ECDSA authentication identity of
105 Contains the protocol version 2 Ed25519 authentication identity
109 Contains the protocol version 2 RSA authentication identity of
112 Identity files should not be readable by anyone but the user. Note that
113 ssh-add ignores identity files if they are accessible by others.
116 Exit status is 0 on success, 1 if the specified command fails, and 2 if
117 ssh-add is unable to contact the authentication agent.
120 ssh(1), ssh-agent(1), ssh-askpass(1), ssh-keygen(1), sshd(8)
123 OpenSSH is a derivative of the original and free ssh 1.2.12 release by
124 Tatu Ylonen. Aaron Campbell, Bob Beck, Markus Friedl, Niels Provos, Theo
125 de Raadt and Dug Song removed many bugs, re-added newer features and
126 created OpenSSH. Markus Friedl contributed the support for SSH protocol
127 versions 1.5 and 2.0.
129 OpenBSD 5.8 March 30, 2015 OpenBSD 5.8