Formed in 2009, the Archive Team (not to be confused with the archive.org Archive-It Team) is a rogue archivist collective dedicated to saving copies of rapidly dying or deleted websites for the sake of history and digital heritage. The group is 100% composed of volunteers and interested parties, and has expanded into a large amount of related projects for saving online and digital history.
With SSH keys, if someone gains access to your computer, they also gain access to every system that uses that key. To add an extra layer of security, you can add a passphrase to your SSH key. You can use ssh-agent to securely save your passphrase so you don't have to reenter it.
Adding or changing a passphrase
You can change the passphrase for an existing private key without regenerating the keypair by typing the following command:
$ ssh-keygen -p
# Start the SSH key creation process
> Enter file in which the key is (/Users/you/.ssh/id_rsa): [Hit enter]
> Key has comment '/Users/you/.ssh/id_rsa'
> Enter new passphrase (empty for no passphrase): [Type new passphrase]
> Enter same passphrase again: [One more time for luck]
> Your identification has been saved with the new passphrase.If your key already has a passphrase, you will be prompted to enter it before you can change to a new passphrase.
Saving your passphrase in the keychain
On OS X Leopard through OS X El Capitan, these default private key files are handled automatically:
- .ssh/id_rsa
- .ssh/identity
The first time you use your key, you will be prompted to enter your passphrase. If you choose to save the passphrase with your keychain, you won't have to enter it again.
Otherwise, you can store your passphrase in the keychain when you add your key to the ssh-agent. For more information, see "Adding your SSH key to the ssh-agent."