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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 [-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 cer-
     tificate 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.
     -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 speci-
             fied 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.
     SSH_USE_STRONG_RNG
             The reseeding of the OpenSSL random generator is usually done
             from getrandom(1) without any specific flags.  If the
             SSH_USE_STRONG_RNG environment variable is set to value other
             than 0 the OpenSSL random generator is reseeded from getrandom(1)
             with GRND_RANDOM flag specified.  The number of bytes read is
             defined by the SSH_USE_STRONG_RNG value.  Minimum is 14 bytes.
             This setting is not recommended on the computers without the
             hardware random generator because insufficient entropy causes the
             connection to be blocked until enough entropy is available.
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 cre-
     ated OpenSSH.  Markus Friedl contributed the support for SSH protocol
     versions 1.5 and 2.0.
BSD                            January 21, 2019                            BSD