NAME
ssh-agent - authentication agent
SYNOPSIS
ssh-agent command
eval `ssh-agent [-k] [-s] [-c]`
DESCRIPTION
Ssh-agent is a program to hold authentication private keys.
The idea is that ssh-agent is started in the beginning of an
X-session or a login session, and all other windows or pro-
grams are started as children of the ssh-agent program (the
command normally starts X or is the user shell). Programs
started under the agent inherit a connection to the agent,
and the agent is automatically used for RSA authentication
when logging to other machines using ssh.
If the ssh-agent is started without any arguments (no com-
mand) it will fork and start agent as background process.
The agent also prints command that can be evaluated in sh or
csh like shells, that will set the SSH_AUTH_SOCK and
SSH_AGENT_PID environment variables. The SSH_AGENT_PID
environment variable can be used to kill agent away when it
is no longer needed (you logout from X-session etc). If no
options are given the ssh-agent uses SHELL environment vari-
able the detect what kind of shell you have (*csh or sh-
style shell). The -c option will force csh-style shell, and
-s option will force sh-style shell.
Note that in SysV variants (at least IRIX and Solaris) the
environment variable SHELL might not contain the actual
value of the shell executing the evaluation. If ALTSHELL is
set to YES in /etc/default/login, the SHELL environment
variable is set to the login shell of the user.
The -k option can be used to kill agent automatically. It
kills the agent (it uses the SSH_AGENT_PID to find it) and
prints shell commands to stdout that will unset the
SSH_AUTH_SOCKET and SSH_AGENT_PID enviroment variables.
The agent initially does not have any private keys. Keys
are added using ssh-add. When executed without arguments,
ssh-add adds the $HOME/.ssh/identity file. If the identity
has a passphrase, ssh-add asks for the passphrase (using a
small X11 application if running under X11, or from the ter-
minal if running without X). It then sends the identity to
the agent. Several identities can be stored in the agent;
the agent can automatically use any of these identities.
Ssh-add -l displays the identities currently held by the
agent.
The idea is that the agent is run in the user's local PC,
laptop, or terminal. Authentication data need not be stored
on any other machine, and authentication passphrases never
go over the network. However, the connection to the agent
is forwarded over ssh remote logins, and the user can thus
use the privileges given by the identities anywhere in the
network in a secure way.
A connection to the agent is inherited by child programs. A
unix-domain socket is created (/tmp/ssh-$USER/ssh-<pid>-
agent), where the %d is the process id of the listener
(agent or sshd proxying the agent). The name of this socket
is stored in the SSH_AUTH_SOCK environment variable. The
socket is made accessible only to the current user. This
method is easily abused by root or another instance of the
same user. Older versions of ssh used inherited file
descriptors for contacting the agent and used the unix-
domain sockets in an incompatible way.
If the command is given as argument to ssh-agent the agent
exits automatically when the command given on the command
line terminates. The command is executed even if agent
fails to start it's key-storing and challenge-processing
services.
FILES
$HOME/.ssh/identity
Contains the RSA authentication identity of the user.
This file should not be readable by anyone but the
user. It is possible to specify a passphrase when gen-
erating the key; that passphrase will be used to
encrypt the private part of this file. This file is
not used by ssh-agent, but is normally added to the
agent using ssh-add at login time.
/tmp/ssh-$USER/ssh-<pid>-agent
Unix-domain sockets used to contain the connection to
the authentication agent. These sockets should only be
readable by the owner. The sockets should get automat-
ically removed when the agent exits. The parent direc-
tory of ssh-$USER must have it's sticky bit set.
AUTHOR
Tatu Ylonen <ylo@ssh.fi>
SEE ALSO
ssh-add(1), ssh-keygen(1), ssh(1), sshd(8)
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