SH-AD(1)                BSD General Commands Manual               SH-AD(1)

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

SYNOPSIS
     ssh-add [-cDdLlXxKk] [-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
     ~/.ssh/idrsa, ~/.ssh/iddsa and ~/.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 the SHAUTHSOCK environ-
     ment 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 SHASKPAS program mentioned below.  Successful confirma-
             tion is signaled by a zero exit status from the SHASKPAS pro-
             gram, 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 arguments, the keys for the
             default identities will be removed.  Otherwise, the argument list
             will be interpreted as a list of paths to public key files and
             matching keys will be removed from the agent.  If no public key
             is found at a given path, ssh-add will append .pub and retry.

     -e reader
             Remove key in smartcard reader.

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

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

     -s reader
             Add key in smartcard reader.

     -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 sshdconfig(5).

     -X      Unlock the agent.

     -x      Lock the agent with a password.

     -K      When adding identities, each passphrase will also be stored in
             your keychain.  When removing identities with -d, each passphrase
             will be removed from your keychain.

     -k      Add identities to the agent using any passphrases stored in your
             keychain.

ENVIRONMENT
     DISPLAY and SHASKPAS
             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
             SHASKPAS are set, it will execute the program specified by
             SHASKPAS 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.)

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

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

     ~/.ssh/iddsa
             Contains the protocol version 2 DSA authentication identity of
             the user.

     ~/.ssh/idrsa
             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.

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.

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

AUTHORS
     OpenSH 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 OpenSH.  Markus Friedl contributed the support for SH protocol
     versions 1.5 and 2.0.

BSD                              March 6, 2010                             BSD