Script to add ssh key to all your servers

Use this single bash script to place your ssh keys to remote server using ssh-copy-id

September 10, 2026

This is a basic script that I've been using for about 5 years now. Pretty easy to work with it. Make sure you have a file servers.txt in path ~/Documents/servers-list or change the path. Remember this script will always need your password to make an entry to a server. So it's frustrating for the first time.

Script

bash

#!/bin/bash
for ip in `cat ~/Documents/servers-list/servers.txt`; do
	echo "trying copy key to $ip"
	ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/for-servers.pub $ip
done

Because now I have 100s of server, i need something better. So, here's v2 which needs a password single time.

Just make sure you have sshpass installed.

bash

1	sudo apt install sshpass

Script v2

bash

#!/bin/bash
read -s -p "Enter SSH password: " SSHPASS
echo
while read -r ip; do
    [[ -z "$ip" ]] && continue
    echo "==> Copying key to $ip"
    SSHPASS="$SSHPASS" sshpass -e ssh-copy-id \
        -i ~/.ssh/for-servers.pub \
        "$ip"
    if [[ $? -eq 0 ]]; then
        echo "    SUCCESS: $ip"
    else
        echo "    FAILED:  $ip"
    fi
done < ~/Documents/servers-list/servers.txt
unset SSHPASS

1	#!/bin/bash
2	for ip in `cat ~/Documents/servers-list/servers.txt`; do
3	echo "trying copy key to $ip"
4	ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/for-servers.pub $ip
5	done

1	#!/bin/bash
2	read -s -p "Enter SSH password: " SSHPASS
3	echo
4	while read -r ip; do
5	[[ -z "$ip" ]] && continue
6	echo "==> Copying key to $ip"
7	SSHPASS="$SSHPASS" sshpass -e ssh-copy-id \
8	-i ~/.ssh/for-servers.pub \
9	"$ip"
10	if [[ $? -eq 0 ]]; then
11	echo " SUCCESS: $ip"
12	else
13	echo " FAILED: $ip"
14	fi
15	done < ~/Documents/servers-list/servers.txt
16	unset SSHPASS