ssh-add.1

.\"	$OpenBSD: ssh-add.1,v 1.76 2019/11/30 07:07:59 jmc Exp $
.\"
.\" Author: Tatu Ylonen <ylo@cs.hut.fi>
.\" Copyright (c) 1995 Tatu Ylonen <ylo@cs.hut.fi>, Espoo, Finland
.\"                    All rights reserved
.\"
.\" As far as I am concerned, the code I have written for this software
.\" can be used freely for any purpose.  Any derived versions of this
.\" software must be clearly marked as such, and if the derived work is
.\" incompatible with the protocol description in the RFC file, it must be
.\" called by a name other than "ssh" or "Secure Shell".
.\"
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1999,2000 Markus Friedl.  All rights reserved.
.\" Copyright (c) 1999 Aaron Campbell.  All rights reserved.
.\" Copyright (c) 1999 Theo de Raadt.  All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
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.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
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.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
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.Dd $Mdocdate: November 30 2019 $
.Dt SSH-ADD 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm ssh-add
.Nd adds private key identities to the OpenSSH authentication agent
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm ssh-add
.Op Fl cDdkLlqvXx
.Op Fl E Ar fingerprint_hash
.Op Fl S Ar provider
.Op Fl t Ar life
.Op Ar
.Nm ssh-add
.Fl s Ar pkcs11
.Nm ssh-add
.Fl e Ar pkcs11
.Nm ssh-add
.Fl T
.Ar pubkey ...
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm
adds private key identities to the authentication agent,
.Xr ssh-agent 1 .
When run without arguments, it adds the files
.Pa ~/.ssh/id_rsa ,
.Pa ~/.ssh/id_dsa ,
.Pa ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa ,
.Pa ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa_sk ,
.Pa ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 ,
and
.Pa ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_sk .
After loading a private key,
.Nm
will try to load corresponding certificate information from the
filename obtained by appending
.Pa -cert.pub
to the name of the private key file.
Alternative file names can be given on the command line.
.Pp
If any file requires a passphrase,
.Nm
asks for the passphrase from the user.
The passphrase is read from the user's tty.
.Nm
retries the last passphrase if multiple identity files are given.
.Pp
The authentication agent must be running and the
.Ev SSH_AUTH_SOCK
environment variable must contain the name of its socket for
.Nm
to work.
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl c
Indicates that added identities should be subject to confirmation before
being used for authentication.
Confirmation is performed by
.Xr ssh-askpass 1 .
Successful confirmation is signaled by a zero exit status from
.Xr ssh-askpass 1 ,
rather than text entered into the requester.
.It Fl D
Deletes all identities from the agent.
.It Fl d
Instead of adding identities, removes identities from the agent.
If
.Nm
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,
.Nm
will append
.Pa .pub
and retry.
.It Fl E Ar fingerprint_hash
Specifies the hash algorithm used when displaying key fingerprints.
Valid options are:
.Dq md5
and
.Dq sha256 .
The default is
.Dq sha256 .
.It Fl e Ar pkcs11
Remove keys provided by the PKCS#11 shared library
.Ar pkcs11 .
.It Fl k
When loading keys into or deleting keys from the agent, process plain private
keys only and skip certificates.
.It Fl L
Lists public key parameters of all identities currently represented
by the agent.
.It Fl l
Lists fingerprints of all identities currently represented by the agent.
.It Fl q
Be quiet after a successful operation.
.It Fl S Ar provider
Specifies a path to a security key provider library that will be used when
adding any security key-hosted keys, overriding the default of using the
internal USB HID support.
.It Fl s Ar pkcs11
Add keys provided by the PKCS#11 shared library
.Ar pkcs11 .
.It Fl T Ar pubkey ...
Tests whether the private keys that correspond to the specified
.Ar pubkey
files are usable by performing sign and verify operations on each.
.It Fl t Ar 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
.Xr sshd_config 5 .
.It Fl v
Verbose mode.
Causes
.Nm
to print debugging messages about its progress.
This is helpful in debugging problems.
Multiple
.Fl v
options increase the verbosity.
The maximum is 3.
.It Fl X
Unlock the agent.
.It Fl x
Lock the agent with a password.
.El
.Sh ENVIRONMENT
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Ev "DISPLAY" and "SSH_ASKPASS"
If
.Nm
needs a passphrase, it will read the passphrase from the current
terminal if it was run from a terminal.
If
.Nm
does not have a terminal associated with it but
.Ev DISPLAY
and
.Ev SSH_ASKPASS
are set, it will execute the program specified by
.Ev SSH_ASKPASS
(by default
.Dq ssh-askpass )
and open an X11 window to read the passphrase.
This is particularly useful when calling
.Nm
from a
.Pa .xsession
or related script.
(Note that on some machines it
may be necessary to redirect the input from
.Pa /dev/null
to make this work.)
.It Ev SSH_AUTH_SOCK
Identifies the path of a
.Ux Ns -domain
socket used to communicate with the agent.
.It Ev SSH_SK_PROVIDER
Specifies the path to a security key provider library used to interact with
hardware security keys.
.El
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Pa ~/.ssh/id_dsa
Contains the DSA authentication identity of the user.
.It Pa ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa
Contains the ECDSA authentication identity of the user.
.It Pa ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa_sk
Contains the security key-hosted ECDSA authentication identity of the user.
.It Pa ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
Contains the Ed25519 authentication identity of the user.
.It Pa ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_sk
Contains the security key-hosted Ed25519 authentication identity of the user.
.It Pa ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Contains the RSA authentication identity of the user.
.El
.Pp
Identity files should not be readable by anyone but the user.
Note that
.Nm
ignores identity files if they are accessible by others.
.Sh EXIT STATUS
Exit status is 0 on success, 1 if the specified command fails,
and 2 if
.Nm
is unable to contact the authentication agent.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr ssh 1 ,
.Xr ssh-agent 1 ,
.Xr ssh-askpass 1 ,
.Xr ssh-keygen 1 ,
.Xr sshd 8
.Sh 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.