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 [-cDdkLlqXx] [-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, and ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.
15 After loading a private key, ssh-add will try to load corresponding
16 certificate information from the filename obtained by appending -cert.pub
17 to the name of the private key file. Alternative file names can be given
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
63 -q Be quiet after a successful operation.
66 Add keys provided by the PKCS#11 shared library pkcs11.
69 Set a maximum lifetime when adding identities to an agent. The
70 lifetime may be specified in seconds or in a time format
71 specified in sshd_config(5).
75 -x Lock the agent with a password.
78 DISPLAY and SSH_ASKPASS
79 If ssh-add needs a passphrase, it will read the passphrase from
80 the current terminal if it was run from a terminal. If ssh-add
81 does not have a terminal associated with it but DISPLAY and
82 SSH_ASKPASS are set, it will execute the program specified by
83 SSH_ASKPASS (by default M-bM-^@M-^\ssh-askpassM-bM-^@M-^]) and open an X11 window to
84 read the passphrase. This is particularly useful when calling
85 ssh-add from a .xsession or related script. (Note that on some
86 machines it may be necessary to redirect the input from /dev/null
90 Identifies the path of a UNIX-domain socket used to communicate
95 Contains the DSA authentication identity of the user.
98 Contains the ECDSA authentication identity of the user.
101 Contains the Ed25519 authentication identity of the user.
104 Contains the RSA authentication identity of the user.
106 Identity files should not be readable by anyone but the user. Note that
107 ssh-add ignores identity files if they are accessible by others.
110 Exit status is 0 on success, 1 if the specified command fails, and 2 if
111 ssh-add is unable to contact the authentication agent.
114 ssh(1), ssh-agent(1), ssh-askpass(1), ssh-keygen(1), sshd(8)
117 OpenSSH is a derivative of the original and free ssh 1.2.12 release by
118 Tatu Ylonen. Aaron Campbell, Bob Beck, Markus Friedl, Niels Provos, Theo
119 de Raadt and Dug Song removed many bugs, re-added newer features and
120 created OpenSSH. Markus Friedl contributed the support for SSH protocol
121 versions 1.5 and 2.0.
123 OpenBSD 6.2 August 29, 2017 OpenBSD 6.2