- markus@cvs.openbsd.org 2001/12/27 18:22:16

[openssh.git] / ssh-agent.1

diff --git a/ssh-agent.1 b/ssh-agent.1
index a0ca19d4f89c99c51c7ba9e552b6c4d40f2a7e32..2b9f3d97c951239a35605cf9fceb28049b9c97b0 100644 (file)
--- a/ssh-agent.1
+++ b/ssh-agent.1
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-.\" $OpenBSD: ssh-agent.1,v 1.26 2001/07/15 16:57:21 stevesk Exp $
+.\" $OpenBSD: ssh-agent.1,v 1.29 2001/11/19 18:40:46 stevesk Exp $
 .\"
 .\" Author: Tatu Ylonen <ylo@cs.hut.fi>
 .\" Copyright (c) 1995 Tatu Ylonen <ylo@cs.hut.fi>, Espoo, Finland
@@ -42,14 +42,12 @@
 .Nd authentication agent
 .Sh SYNOPSIS
 .Nm ssh-agent
-.Ar command
-.Ar args ...
-.Nm ssh-agent
 .Op Fl c Li | Fl s
+.Op Fl d
+.Op Ar command Op Ar args ...
 .Nm ssh-agent
+.Op Fl c Li | Fl s
 .Fl k
-.Nm ssh-agent
-.Fl d
 .Sh DESCRIPTION
 .Nm
 is a program to hold private keys used for public key authentication
@@ -118,9 +116,9 @@ remote logins, and the user can thus use the privileges given by the
 identities anywhere in the network in a secure way.
 .Pp
 There are two main ways to get an agent setup:
-Either you let the agent
-start a new subcommand into which some environment variables are exported, or
-you let the agent print the needed shell commands (either
+Either the agent starts a new subcommand into which some environment
+variables are exported, or the agent prints the needed shell commands
+(either
 .Xr sh 1
 or
 .Xr csh 1
@@ -129,6 +127,11 @@ Later
 .Xr ssh 1
 looks at these variables and uses them to establish a connection to the agent.
 .Pp
+The agent will never send a private key over its request channel.
+Instead, operations that require a private key will be performed
+by the agent, and the result will be returned to the requester.
+This way, private keys are not exposed to clients using the agent.
+.Pp
 A unix-domain socket is created
 .Pq Pa /tmp/ssh-XXXXXXXX/agent.<pid> ,
 and the name of this socket is stored in the