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

ssh-add - adds identities for the authentication agent

Synopsis

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

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 <[email protected]>;
OS/2 adaptation by Hans-Michael Stahl <[email protected]>