NAME
ssh-remote-agent - remote authentification agent for ssh
SYNOPSIS
ssh-remote-agent [-v] [-V] [-h] -d|-k|-l|-n|-s SecureHostName
DESCRIPTION
ssh-remote-agent is a program to hold private DSA keys used for public key
authentication. Through use of environment variables the remote-agent can be
located and automatically used for authentication when logging in to other
machines using ssh(1).
The options are as follows:
-d Delete the public and private keys of the user on the secure host.
-h Print usage and exit.
-k Kill the current ssh-remote-agent.
-l Lists public key of the identity currently represented by the remote-agent.
-n Generate new RSA keys ala ssh-keygen(1) on the secure host. Complains and
does not overwrite if a key pair already exists.
-s On the secure host, start a ssh-agent and generate a key pair if none exists.
Locally, set up the agent forwarding socket and print commands to set up the
environment variable socket name.
-v Verbose mode.
-V Print client and server version numbers.
The remote-agent initially does not have any private keys. Keys are generated using
either the -n or -s option.
The idea is that the remote-agent runs on a remote, secure machine, so that
the user's local PC or laptop does not contain the user's private key.
Authentication is provided using the designated access method to log onto the secure
machine once per day or session.