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SSH-ADD(1)                BSD General Commands Manual               SSH-ADD(1)
NAME
     ssh-add -- adds private key identities to the authentication agent
SYNOPSIS
     ssh-add [-cDdkLlXx] [-E fingerprint_hash] [-t life] [file ...]
     ssh-add -s pkcs11
     ssh-add -e pkcs11
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, ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 and
     ~/.ssh/identity.  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 environ-
     ment 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 certifi-
             cates 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 finger-
             prints.  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 repre-
             sented by the agent.
     -l      Lists fingerprints of all identities currently represented by the
             agent.
     -s pkcs11
             Add keys provided by the PKCS#11 shared library pkcs11.
     -t life
             Set a maximum lifetime when adding identities to an agent.  The
             lifetime may be specified in seconds or in a time format speci-
             fied in sshd_config(5).
     -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.
     SSH_USE_STRONG_RNG
             The reseeding of the OpenSSL random generator is usually done
             from /dev/urandom.  If the SSH_USE_STRONG_RNG environment vari-
             able is set to value other than 0 the OpenSSL random generator is
             reseeded from /dev/random.  The number of bytes read is defined
             by the SSH_USE_STRONG_RNG value.  Minimum is 14 bytes.  This set-
             ting is not recommended on the computers without the hardware
             random generator because insufficient entropy causes the connec-
             tion to be blocked until enough entropy is available.
FILES
     ~/.ssh/identity
             Contains the protocol version 1 RSA authentication identity of
             the user.
     ~/.ssh/id_dsa
             Contains the protocol version 2 DSA authentication identity of
             the user.
     ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa
             Contains the protocol version 2 ECDSA authentication identity of
             the user.
     ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
             Contains the protocol version 2 Ed25519 authentication identity
             of the user.
     ~/.ssh/id_rsa
             Contains the protocol version 2 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 cre-
     ated OpenSSH.  Markus Friedl contributed the support for SSH protocol
     versions 1.5 and 2.0.
BSD                               May 2, 2024                              BSD