SSH-ADD(1)                     SSH                     SSH-ADD(1)



NAME
       ssh-add - adds identities for the authentication agent


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


DESCRIPTION
       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.  If the -p
       option is given then the passphrase is  read  from  stdin,
       otherwise  if  the  user  is  using X11, the passphrase is
       requested using a small X11 program; otherwise it is  read
       from  the user's tty.  (Note: it may be necessary to redi­
       rect stdin from /dev/null to get the passphrase  requested
       using X11.)

       The  authentication  agent  must be running and must be an
       ancestor of the current process for ssh-add to work.


OPTIONS
       -p   Read passphrase from stdin (or pipe).

       -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 catch-
              all for errors not listed above.


FILES
       $HOME/.ssh/identity
              Contains the RSA  authentication  identity  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 terminal if it was run
              from a terminal.  If ssh-add does not have a termi­
              nal  associated with it but DISPLAY is set, it will
              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.)


AUTHOR
       Tatu Ylonen <ylo@ssh.fi>


SEE ALSO
       ssh-agent(1), ssh-keygen(1), ssh(1), sshd(8)



SSH                      November 8, 1995              SSH-ADD(1)