SSH-ADD(1)						    BSD General Commands Manual 						SSH-ADD(1)

NAME

     ssh-add -- adds private key identities to the authentication agent

SYNOPSIS

     ssh-add [-cDdLlXx] [-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 and ~/.ssh/identity.  After loading a private key, ssh-add will try to load corresponding certificate informa-
     tion from the filename obtained by appending -cert.pub to the name of the private key file.  Alternative file names can be given on the com-
     mand 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 signaled 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 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 pkcs11
	     Remove keys provided by the PKCS#11 shared library pkcs11.

     -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
	     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.

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_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 authentication 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
								 October 28, 2010							       BSD