SSH-COPY-ID(1) SSH-COPY-ID(1) NAME ssh-copy-id - install your public key in a remote machines autho rized_keys SYNOPSIS ssh-copy-id [-i [identity_file]] [user@]machine DESCRIPTION ssh-copy-id is a script that uses ssh to log into a remote machine (presumably using a login password, so password authentication should be enabled, unless youve done some clever use of multiple identities) It also changes the permissions of the remote users home, ~/.ssh, and ~/.ssh/authorized_keys to remove group writability (which would other wise prevent you from logging in, if the remote sshd has StrictModes set in its configuration). If the -i option is given then the identity file (defaults to ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub) is used, regardless of whether there are any keys in your ssh-agent. Otherwise, if this: ssh-add -L provides any output, it uses that in preference to the identity file. If the -i option is used, or the ssh-add produced no output, then it uses the contents of the identity file. Once it has one or more fin gerprints (by whatever means) it uses ssh to append them to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on the remote machine (creating the file, and directory, if necessary) SEE ALSO ssh(1), ssh-agent(1), sshd(8) OpenSSH 14 November 1999 SSH-COPY-ID(1)