ssh-import-id(1)

✨ NAME ✨

okay so ssh-import-id 💖 is the tool that lets you grab one or more public keys from a public keyserver and slide them right into the current user's authorized_keys file (or some other file you pick) 🔑🫶

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

ssh-import-id [options] USER_ID_1 [gh:USER_ID_2] ... [lp:USER_ID_n]

ssh-import-id-lp USER_ID_1 [USER_ID_2] ... [USER_ID_n]

ssh-import-id-gh USER_ID_1 [USER_ID_2] ... [USER_ID_n]

💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -h, --help — shows the usage info, bestie 🙈
• -o, --output F — writes the output to file F instead (default is ~/.ssh/authorized_keys, and you can use "-" to send it to standard out) 🌸
• -r, --remove — removes keys from the authorized keys file F 🥀
• -u, --useragent U — tacks U onto the end of the user agent string ✨
• PROTO:USER_ID — the protocol can be lp for Launchpad.net, or gh for Github.com 🦋

🌈 DESCRIPTION 🌈

okay so this utility is seriously so secure 🔒 It contacts a public keyserver and retrieves one or more users' public keys, then appends them to the current user's ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file, standard output, or any other output file you want 💜

User IDs can be prepended by a protocol:

• lp: to use https://launchpad.net/~%s/+sshkeys
• gh: to use https://api.github.com/users/%s/keys

If the protocol is not explicitly specified, ssh-import-id will read a URL variable string from /etc/ssh/ssh_import_id, as installed by your package manager and configured by your system administrator. You can override this locally by exporting the string you want in a URL environment variable. If all of these are empty, then the protocol is assumed to be "lp:", which was the original target implementation of this tool 🧚

Any keys added will be "labled" with a trailing comment, # ssh-import-id PROTO:USER_ID. Revoking keys will first look for lines in the authorized keys file ending with that label 🏷️

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

ssh(1)

📂 FILES 📂

/etc/ssh/ssh_import_id

👑 AUTHOR 👑

This manpage and the utility was written by Dustin Kirkland <dustin.kirkland@gmail.com> for Ubuntu systems (but may be used by others). Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU General Public License, Version 3 published by the Free Software Foundation.

On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL.

bestie, that's the whole tea on ssh-import-id(1) from ssh-import, last updated 4 Feb 2013 🫶💅✨