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

# NAME

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

# SYNOPSIS

`ssh-add` | [`-cDdkLlqvXx`] [`-E` fingerprint_hash] [`-t` life] [file ...]

`ssh-add` | `-s` pkcs11

`ssh-add` | `-e` pkcs11

`ssh-add` | `-T` pubkey ...

# 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/id_ed25519. After loading a private key, `ssh-add` will try to load corresponding certificate information from the filename obtained by appending -cert.pub to the name of the private key file. 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 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 ssh-askpass(1). Successful confirmation is signaled by a zero exit status from ssh-askpass(1), 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 and their corresponding certificates will be removed. Otherwise, the argument list will be interpreted as a list of paths to public key files to specify keys and certificates to be removed from the agent. If no public key is found at a given path, `ssh-add` will append .pub and retry.
`-E` fingerprint_hash
  Specifies the hash algorithm used when displaying key fingerprints. Valid options are: “md5” and “sha256”. The default is “sha256”.
`-e` pkcs11
  Remove keys provided by the PKCS#11 shared library pkcs11.
`-k`
  When loading keys into or deleting keys from the agent, process plain private keys only and skip certificates.
`-L`
  Lists public key parameters of all identities currently represented by the agent.
`-l`
  Lists fingerprints of all identities currently represented by the agent.
`-q`
  Be quiet after a successful operation.
`-s` pkcs11
  Add keys provided by the PKCS#11 shared library pkcs11.
`-T` pubkey ...
  Tests whether the private keys that correspond to the specified pubkey files are usable by performing sign and verify operations on each.
`-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).
`-v`
  Verbose mode. Causes `ssh-add` to print debugging messages about its progress. This is helpful in debugging problems. Multiple `-v` options increase the verbosity. The maximum is 3.
`-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` (by default “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/id_dsa
  Contains the DSA authentication identity of the user.
~/.ssh/id_ecdsa
  Contains the ECDSA authentication identity of the user.
~/.ssh/id_ed25519
  Contains the Ed25519 authentication identity of the user.
~/.ssh/id_rsa
  Contains the 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-askpass(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.

January 21 2019 | NetBSD 9.3