'How to use ssh-add to remove identities (pem files) from the agent

I can add pem files to my SSH agent very easily using ssh-add, like so:

$ ssh-add /home/jsmith/keys/mytest.pem

But I can't seem to remove them:

$ ssh-add -d /home/jsmith/keys/mytest.pem
Bad key file /home/jsmith/keys/mytest.pem: No such file or directory

The pem file still exists though... I haven't moved or changed it in any way. Why am I having so much trouble removing this pem file from my SSH agent that I just added a moment ago? What's the correct way to do this?

I want to avoid using ssh-add -D (with a capital "D") because that would delete all of the identities from my SSH agent, and I only want to delete the one I've specified.

linuxsshpemssh-agent


Solution 1:[1]

If you know the comment associated with the key you can simply get the public key from the agent and pipe it back in to delete it.

ssh-add -L | grep -F '[email protected]' | ssh-add -d -

Solution 2:[2]

The best alternative I've found is to re-add the same file but with a life-time of 1 second:

ssh-add -t 1 myfile.pem

It is easier to remember than extracting the public key.

Sources

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Source: Stack Overflow

Solution Source
Solution 1 LennyLenny
Solution 2 MagMax

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