[Synopsis ] [Description ] [Options ] [Return status ] [Files ] [Authors ] [See also ]

ssh-add - adds identities for the authentication agent

Synopsis

ssh-add [-l] [-d] [-D] [file...]

Description

Ssh-add adds identities to the authentication agent, ssh-agent. 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 authentication agent must be running and must be an ancestor of the current process for ssh-add to work.

Options

-l
Lists 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.

Return status

Ssh-add returns one of the following exit statuses. These may be useful in scripts.

0
The requested operation was performed successfully.
1
No connection could be made to the authentication agent. Presumably there is no authentication agent active in the execution environment of ssh-add.
2
The user did not supply a required passphrase.
3
An identify file could not be found, was not read­ able, or was in bad format.
4
The agent does not have the requested identity.
5
An unspecified error has occurred; this is a catchall for errors not listed above.

Files

%HOME%/.ssh/identity
Contains the RSA authentication identity (public key) of the user. This file should not be readable by anyone but the user. 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 session if it was not started as a detached process.

Authors

Tatu Ylönen <ylo@cs.hut.fi>;
OS/2 adaptation by Hans-Michael Stahl <hmstahl@berlin.snafu.de>

See also

ssh-agent, ssh-keygen, ssh, sshd
Last update: 13 January 1997 by hmstahl@berlin.snafu.de