Exit status on `ssh-add` failure

[Wiktor Kwapisiewicz]

Hi Damien,

On 21.05.2026 12:23, Damien Miller wrote:
>> The certificate has not been added due to agent protocol error but ssh-add
>> still returned exit code 0.
>>
>> The EXIT STATUS section of the manpage for ssh-add states: "Exit  status  is
>> 0  on success, 1 if the specified command fails, and 2 if ssh-add is unable to
>> contact the authentication agent." but it doesn't mention what happens when
>> the command partially succeeds (identity has been added but the certificate
>> not).
>>
>> Is that the intended behavior of ssh-add?
> 
> This is intentional but somewhat legacy, dating from when certificate support
> was fairly rare in ssh-agent.

Understood. Would it be a good idea to document this behavior somewhere? 
(e.g. in man pages of ssh-add or under EXIT STATUS section). If so, I 
can send a patch (this should be minimal).

Thanks for your time!

Kind regards,
Wiktor