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

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

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

DESCRIPTION
     ssh-add adds RSA or DSA 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.

     $HOME/.ssh/id_dsa
             Contains the DSA authentication identity of the user.

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.)

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 (i.e., patents, see
         crypto(3)) 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).

SEE ALSO
     ssh(1), ssh-agent(1), ssh-keygen(1), sshd(8), crypto(3)

BSD                           September 25, 1999                           BSD