ssh-pkcs11-helper(8)

ssh-pkcs11-helper8

Openssh helper for pkcs#11 support

Usage

ssh-pkcs11-helper [-v]

Overview

ssh-pkcs11-helper is used by ssh(1), ssh-agent(1), and ssh-keygen(1) to access keys provided by a PKCS#11 token.

ssh-pkcs11-helper is not intended to be invoked directly by the user.

A single option is supported:

-v

Verbose mode. Causes ssh-pkcs11-helper to print debugging messages about its progress. This is helpful in debugging problems. Multiple -v options increase the verbosity. The maximum is 3.

Note that ssh(1), ssh-agent(1), and ssh-keygen(1) will automatically pass the -v flag to ssh-pkcs11-helper when they have themselves been placed in debug mode.

Releases

35 releases since OpenBSD 4.7; the text changed 4 times.

  1. 4.7–5.3
  2. 5.4–6.4
  3. 6.5–6.6
  4. 6.7–7.1
  5. 7.2–8.0

-v since OpenBSD 6.5.

History

ssh-pkcs11-helper first appeared in OpenBSD 4.7.

Authors

Markus Friedl ⟨[email protected]⟩

From man 8.0-current-20261101 in OpenBSD 8.0-current (2026-11-01). Parsed by carta from the page's mdoc source.