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

NAME
     ssh-add – adds identities for the authentication agent

SYNOPSIS
     ssh-add [-lLdD] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION
     ssh-add adds identities to the authentication agent, ssh-agent(1).  When
     run without arguments, it adds the file $HOME/.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 it is read from the user's tty.

     The authentication agent must be running and must be an ancestor of the
     current process for ssh-add to work.

     The options are as follows:

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

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

     -d      Instead of adding the identity, removes the identity from the
             agent.

     -D      Deletes all identities from the agent.

FILES
     $HOME/.ssh/identity Contains the RSA authentication identity of the user.
     This file should not be readable by anyone but the user.  Note that
     ssh-add ignores this file if it is accessible by others.  It is possible
     to specify a passphrase when generating the key; that passphrase will be
     used to encrypt the private part of this file.  This is the default file
     added by ssh-add when no other files have been specified.

     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.)

AUTHOR
     Tatu Ylonen <ylo@cs.hut.fi>

     OpenSSH is a derivative of the original (free) ssh 1.2.12 release, but
     with bugs removed and newer features re-added.   Rapidly after the 1.2.12
     release, newer versions bore successively more restrictive licenses.
     This version of OpenSSH

     •   has all components of a restrictive nature (ie. patents, see ssl(8))
         directly removed from the source code; any licensed or patented
         components are chosen from external libraries.

     •   has been updated to support ssh protocol 1.5.

     •   contains added support for kerberos(8) authentication and ticket
         passing.

     •   supports one-time password authentication with skey(1).

     The libraries described in ssl(8) are required for proper operation.

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

BSD                           September 25, 1999                           BSD