LinuxCommandLibrary

ssh-add

adds private key identities to the authentication agent

TLDR

Add the default ssh keys in ~/.ssh to the ssh-agent

$ ssh-add
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Add a specific key to the ssh-agent
$ ssh-add [path/to/private_key]
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List fingerprints of currently loaded keys
$ ssh-add -l
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Delete a key from the ssh-agent
$ ssh-add -d [path/to/private_key]
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Delete all currently loaded keys from the ssh-agent
$ ssh-add -D
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Add a key to the ssh-agent and the keychain
$ ssh-add -K [path/to/private_key]
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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:

ENVIRONMENT

FILES

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.

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.

SEE ALSO

ssh(1), ssh-agent(1), ssh-askpass(1), ssh-keygen(1), sshd(8)

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