Why is ssh-add <(echo 'pk contents') not working?

Question

I am getting this error:

Permissions 0660 for '/dev/fd/63' are too open. It is required that your private key files are NOT accessible by others. This private key will be ignored.

when I run this:

ssh-add <(echo '<private key content>')

is there a way to change the permissions on the "file"?

no, that doesn't work @GillesQuenot, instead it just adds the default key at ~/.ssh/id_rsa — , Jun 03 '20 at 01:04
I just felt like doing it that way so I didn't have to write it to a file — , Jun 03 '20 at 03:21
What would be the results on your system of these two commands? ls -l <(echo test) and ls -lL <(echo test) ? — A.B, Jun 03 '20 at 10:14

pLumo · Answer 1 · 2020-06-03T09:13:00.607

The error message is pretty clear, and man ssh-add states:

 Identity files should not be readable by anyone but the user.  Note that
 ssh-add ignores identity files if they are accessible by others.

For some reason your file descriptor has 660, but needs 600 permissions. This is not the case for me, but I did yet not find a way to change that (maybe some udev rule).

You may use a pipe instead:

printf '%s' '<private key content>' | ssh-add -

Why is ssh-add <(echo 'pk contents') not working?

1 Answers1