1 This is gnupg.info, produced by makeinfo version 6.5 from gnupg.texi.
3 This is the 'The GNU Privacy Guard Manual' (version 2.2.37-beta27,
6 (C) 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7 (C) 2013, 2014, 2015 Werner Koch.
8 (C) 2015, 2016, 2017 g10 Code GmbH.
10 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
11 document under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
12 published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the
13 License, or (at your option) any later version. The text of the
14 license can be found in the section entitled "Copying".
15 INFO-DIR-SECTION GNU Utilities
17 * gpg2: (gnupg). OpenPGP encryption and signing tool.
18 * gpgsm: (gnupg). S/MIME encryption and signing tool.
19 * gpg-agent: (gnupg). The secret key daemon.
20 * dirmngr: (gnupg). X.509 CRL and OCSP server.
21 * dirmngr-client: (gnupg). X.509 CRL and OCSP client.
25 File: gnupg.info, Node: Top, Next: Installation, Up: (dir)
27 Using the GNU Privacy Guard
28 ***************************
30 This is the 'The GNU Privacy Guard Manual' (version 2.2.37-beta27,
33 (C) 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
34 (C) 2013, 2014, 2015 Werner Koch.
35 (C) 2015, 2016, 2017 g10 Code GmbH.
37 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
38 document under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
39 published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the
40 License, or (at your option) any later version. The text of the
41 license can be found in the section entitled "Copying".
43 This manual documents how to use the GNU Privacy Guard system as well
44 as the administration and the architecture.
48 * Installation:: A short installation guide.
50 * Invoking GPG-AGENT:: How to launch the secret key daemon.
51 * Invoking DIRMNGR:: How to launch the CRL and OCSP daemon.
52 * Invoking GPG:: Using the OpenPGP protocol.
53 * Invoking GPGSM:: Using the S/MIME protocol.
54 * Invoking SCDAEMON:: How to handle Smartcards.
55 * Specify a User ID:: How to Specify a User Id.
56 * Trust Values:: How GnuPG displays trust values.
58 * Helper Tools:: Description of small helper tools
59 * Web Key Service:: Tools for the Web Key Service
61 * Howtos:: How to do certain things.
62 * System Notes:: Notes pertaining to certain OSes.
63 * Debugging:: How to solve problems
65 * Copying:: GNU General Public License says
66 how you can copy and share GnuPG
67 * Contributors:: People who have contributed to GnuPG.
69 * Glossary:: Short description of terms used.
70 * Option Index:: Index to command line options.
71 * Environment Index:: Index to environment variables and files.
72 * Index:: Index of concepts and symbol names.
75 File: gnupg.info, Node: Installation, Next: Invoking GPG-AGENT, Prev: Top, Up: Top
77 1 A short installation guide
78 ****************************
80 Unfortunately the installation guide has not been finished in time.
81 Instead of delaying the release of GnuPG 2.0 even further, I decided to
82 release without that guide. The chapter on gpg-agent and gpgsm do
83 include brief information on how to set up the whole thing. Please
84 watch the GnuPG website for updates of the documentation. In the
85 meantime you may search the GnuPG mailing list archives or ask on the
86 gnupg-users mailing list for advise on how to solve problems or how to
87 get that whole thing up and running.
89 ** Building the software
91 Building the software is described in the file 'INSTALL'. Given that
92 you are already reading this documentation we can only give some extra
95 To comply with the rules on GNU systems you should have build time
96 configured 'gnupg' using:
98 ./configure --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var
100 This is to make sure that system wide configuration files are
101 searched in the directory '/etc' and variable data below '/var'; the
102 default would be to also install them below '/usr/local' where the
103 binaries get installed. If you selected to use the '--prefix=/' you
104 obviously don't need those option as they are the default then.
106 ** Notes on setting a root CA key to trusted
108 X.509 is based on a hierarchical key infrastructure. At the root of
109 the tree a trusted anchor (root certificate) is required. There are
110 usually no other means of verifying whether this root certificate is
111 trustworthy than looking it up in a list. GnuPG uses a file
112 ('trustlist.txt') to keep track of all root certificates it knows about.
113 There are 3 ways to get certificates into this list:
115 * Use the list which comes with GnuPG. However this list only
116 contains a few root certificates. Most installations will need
119 * Let 'gpgsm' ask you whether you want to insert a new root
120 certificate. This feature is enabled by default; you may disable
121 it using the option 'no-allow-mark-trusted' into 'gpg-agent.conf'.
123 * Manually maintain the list of trusted root certificates. For a
124 multi user installation this can be done once for all users on a
125 machine. Specific changes on a per-user base are also possible.
128 File: gnupg.info, Node: Invoking GPG-AGENT, Next: Invoking DIRMNGR, Prev: Installation, Up: Top
133 'gpg-agent' is a daemon to manage secret (private) keys independently
134 from any protocol. It is used as a backend for 'gpg' and 'gpgsm' as
135 well as for a couple of other utilities.
137 The agent is automatically started on demand by 'gpg', 'gpgsm',
138 'gpgconf', or 'gpg-connect-agent'. Thus there is no reason to start it
139 manually. In case you want to use the included Secure Shell Agent you
140 may start the agent using:
142 gpg-connect-agent /bye
144 If you want to manually terminate the currently-running agent, you can
147 gpgconf --kill gpg-agent
149 You should always add the following lines to your '.bashrc' or whatever
150 initialization file is used for all shell invocations:
155 It is important that this environment variable always reflects the
156 output of the 'tty' command. For W32 systems this option is not
159 Please make sure that a proper pinentry program has been installed
160 under the default filename (which is system dependent) or use the option
161 'pinentry-program' to specify the full name of that program. It is
162 often useful to install a symbolic link from the actual used pinentry
163 (e.g. '/usr/local/bin/pinentry-gtk') to the expected one (e.g.
164 '/usr/local/bin/pinentry').
166 *Note Option Index::, for an index to 'GPG-AGENT''s commands and
171 * Agent Commands:: List of all commands.
172 * Agent Options:: List of all options.
173 * Agent Configuration:: Configuration files.
174 * Agent Signals:: Use of some signals.
175 * Agent Examples:: Some usage examples.
176 * Agent Protocol:: The protocol the agent uses.
179 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent Commands, Next: Agent Options, Up: Invoking GPG-AGENT
184 Commands are not distinguished from options except for the fact that
185 only one command is allowed.
188 Print the program version and licensing information. Note that you
189 cannot abbreviate this command.
193 Print a usage message summarizing the most useful command-line
194 options. Note that you cannot abbreviate this command.
197 Print a list of all available options and commands. Note that you
198 cannot abbreviate this command.
201 Run in server mode and wait for commands on the 'stdin'. The
202 default mode is to create a socket and listen for commands there.
204 '--daemon [COMMAND LINE]'
205 Start the gpg-agent as a daemon; that is, detach it from the
206 console and run it in the background.
208 As an alternative you may create a new process as a child of
209 gpg-agent: 'gpg-agent --daemon /bin/sh'. This way you get a new
210 shell with the environment setup properly; after you exit from this
211 shell, gpg-agent terminates within a few seconds.
214 Run in the foreground, sending logs by default to stderr, and
215 listening on provided file descriptors, which must already be bound
216 to listening sockets. This command is useful when running under
217 systemd or other similar process supervision schemes. This option
218 is not supported on Windows.
220 In -supervised mode, different file descriptors can be provided for
221 use as different socket types (e.g. ssh, extra) as long as they
222 are identified in the environment variable 'LISTEN_FDNAMES' (see
223 sd_listen_fds(3) on some Linux distributions for more information
227 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent Options, Next: Agent Configuration, Prev: Agent Commands, Up: Invoking GPG-AGENT
232 Options may either be used on the command line or, after stripping off
233 the two leading dashes, in the configuration file.
236 Reads configuration from FILE instead of from the default per-user
237 configuration file. The default configuration file is named
238 'gpg-agent.conf' and expected in the '.gnupg' directory directly
239 below the home directory of the user. This option is ignored if
240 used in an options file.
243 Set the name of the home directory to DIR. If this option is not
244 used, the home directory defaults to '~/.gnupg'. It is only
245 recognized when given on the command line. It also overrides any
246 home directory stated through the environment variable 'GNUPGHOME'
247 or (on Windows systems) by means of the Registry entry
248 HKCU\SOFTWARE\GNU\GNUPG:HOMEDIR.
250 On Windows systems it is possible to install GnuPG as a portable
251 application. In this case only this command line option is
252 considered, all other ways to set a home directory are ignored.
254 To install GnuPG as a portable application under Windows, create an
255 empty file named 'gpgconf.ctl' in the same directory as the tool
256 'gpgconf.exe'. The root of the installation is then that
257 directory; or, if 'gpgconf.exe' has been installed directly below a
258 directory named 'bin', its parent directory. You also need to make
259 sure that the following directories exist and are writable:
260 'ROOT/home' for the GnuPG home and 'ROOT/usr/local/var/cache/gnupg'
261 for internal cache files.
265 Outputs additional information while running. You can increase the
266 verbosity by giving several verbose commands to 'gpg-agent', such
271 Try to be as quiet as possible.
274 Don't invoke a pinentry or do any other thing requiring human
277 '--faked-system-time EPOCH'
278 This option is only useful for testing; it sets the system time
279 back or forth to EPOCH which is the number of seconds elapsed since
282 '--debug-level LEVEL'
283 Select the debug level for investigating problems. LEVEL may be a
284 numeric value or a keyword:
287 No debugging at all. A value of less than 1 may be used
288 instead of the keyword.
290 Some basic debug messages. A value between 1 and 2 may be
291 used instead of the keyword.
293 More verbose debug messages. A value between 3 and 5 may be
294 used instead of the keyword.
296 Even more detailed messages. A value between 6 and 8 may be
297 used instead of the keyword.
299 All of the debug messages you can get. A value greater than 8
300 may be used instead of the keyword. The creation of hash
301 tracing files is only enabled if the keyword is used.
303 How these messages are mapped to the actual debugging flags is not
304 specified and may change with newer releases of this program. They
305 are however carefully selected to best aid in debugging.
308 This option is only useful for debugging and the behavior may
309 change at any time without notice. FLAGS are bit encoded and may
310 be given in usual C-Syntax. The currently defined bits are:
313 X.509 or OpenPGP protocol related data
315 values of big number integers
317 low level crypto operations
323 show memory statistics
325 write hashed data to files named 'dbgmd-000*'
327 trace Assuan protocol
329 bypass all certificate validation
332 Same as '--debug=0xffffffff'
335 When running in server mode, wait N seconds before entering the
336 actual processing loop and print the pid. This gives time to
339 '--debug-quick-random'
340 This option inhibits the use of the very secure random quality
341 level (Libgcrypt’s 'GCRY_VERY_STRONG_RANDOM') and degrades all
342 request down to standard random quality. It is only used for
343 testing and should not be used for any production quality keys.
344 This option is only effective when given on the command line.
346 On GNU/Linux, another way to quickly generate insecure keys is to
347 use 'rngd' to fill the kernel's entropy pool with lower quality
348 random data. 'rngd' is typically provided by the 'rng-tools'
349 package. It can be run as follows: 'sudo rngd -f -r /dev/urandom'.
352 This option enables extra debug information pertaining to the
353 Pinentry. As of now it is only useful when used along with
357 Don't detach the process from the console. This is mainly useful
361 In '--daemon' mode, gpg-agent detects an already running gpg-agent
362 and does not allow to start a new instance. This option can be
363 used to override this check: the new gpg-agent process will try to
364 take over the communication sockets from the already running
365 process and start anyway. This option should in general not be
372 Format the info output in daemon mode for use with the standard
373 Bourne shell or the C-shell respectively. The default is to guess
374 it based on the environment variable 'SHELL' which is correct in
379 Tell the pinentry to grab the keyboard and mouse. This option
380 should be used on X-Servers to avoid X-sniffing attacks. Any use
381 of the option '--grab' overrides an used option '--no-grab'. The
382 default is '--no-grab'.
385 Append all logging output to FILE. This is very helpful in seeing
386 what the agent actually does. Use 'socket://' to log to socket.
387 If neither a log file nor a log file descriptor has been set on a
388 Windows platform, the Registry entry
389 'HKCU\Software\GNU\GnuPG:DefaultLogFile', if set, is used to
390 specify the logging output.
392 '--no-allow-mark-trusted'
393 Do not allow clients to mark keys as trusted, i.e. put them into
394 the 'trustlist.txt' file. This makes it harder for users to
395 inadvertently accept Root-CA keys.
397 '--no-user-trustlist'
398 Entirely ignore the user trust list and consider only the global
399 trustlist ('/etc/gnupg/trustlist.txt'). This implies the *note
400 option --no-allow-mark-trusted::.
402 '--sys-trustlist-name FILE'
403 Changes the default name for the global trustlist from
404 "trustlist.txt" to FILE. If FILE does not contain any slashes and
405 does not start with "~/" it is searched in the system configuration
406 directory ('/etc/gnupg').
408 '--allow-preset-passphrase'
409 This option allows the use of 'gpg-preset-passphrase' to seed the
410 internal cache of 'gpg-agent' with passphrases.
412 '--no-allow-loopback-pinentry'
413 '--allow-loopback-pinentry'
414 Disallow or allow clients to use the loopback pinentry features;
415 see the option 'pinentry-mode' for details. Allow is the default.
417 The '--force' option of the Assuan command 'DELETE_KEY' is also
418 controlled by this option: The option is ignored if a loopback
419 pinentry is disallowed.
421 '--no-allow-external-cache'
422 Tell Pinentry not to enable features which use an external cache
425 Some desktop environments prefer to unlock all credentials with one
426 master password and may have installed a Pinentry which employs an
427 additional external cache to implement such a policy. By using
428 this option the Pinentry is advised not to make use of such a cache
429 and instead always ask the user for the requested passphrase.
431 '--allow-emacs-pinentry'
432 Tell Pinentry to allow features to divert the passphrase entry to a
433 running Emacs instance. How this is exactly handled depends on the
434 version of the used Pinentry.
436 '--ignore-cache-for-signing'
437 This option will let 'gpg-agent' bypass the passphrase cache for
438 all signing operation. Note that there is also a per-session
439 option to control this behavior but this command line option takes
442 '--default-cache-ttl N'
443 Set the time a cache entry is valid to N seconds. The default is
444 600 seconds. Each time a cache entry is accessed, the entry's
445 timer is reset. To set an entry's maximum lifetime, use
446 'max-cache-ttl'. Note that a cached passphrase may not be evicted
447 immediately from memory if no client requests a cache operation.
448 This is due to an internal housekeeping function which is only run
451 '--default-cache-ttl-ssh N'
452 Set the time a cache entry used for SSH keys is valid to N seconds.
453 The default is 1800 seconds. Each time a cache entry is accessed,
454 the entry's timer is reset. To set an entry's maximum lifetime,
455 use 'max-cache-ttl-ssh'.
458 Set the maximum time a cache entry is valid to N seconds. After
459 this time a cache entry will be expired even if it has been
460 accessed recently or has been set using 'gpg-preset-passphrase'.
461 The default is 2 hours (7200 seconds).
463 '--max-cache-ttl-ssh N'
464 Set the maximum time a cache entry used for SSH keys is valid to N
465 seconds. After this time a cache entry will be expired even if it
466 has been accessed recently or has been set using
467 'gpg-preset-passphrase'. The default is 2 hours (7200 seconds).
469 '--enforce-passphrase-constraints'
470 Enforce the passphrase constraints by not allowing the user to
471 bypass them using the "Take it anyway" button.
473 '--min-passphrase-len N'
474 Set the minimal length of a passphrase. When entering a new
475 passphrase shorter than this value a warning will be displayed.
478 '--min-passphrase-nonalpha N'
479 Set the minimal number of digits or special characters required in
480 a passphrase. When entering a new passphrase with less than this
481 number of digits or special characters a warning will be displayed.
484 '--check-passphrase-pattern FILE'
485 '--check-sym-passphrase-pattern FILE'
486 Check the passphrase against the pattern given in FILE. When
487 entering a new passphrase matching one of these pattern a warning
488 will be displayed. If FILE does not contain any slashes and does
489 not start with "~/" it is searched in the system configuration
490 directory ('/etc/gnupg'). The default is not to use any pattern
491 file. The second version of this option is only used when creating
492 a new symmetric key to allow the use of different patterns for such
495 Security note: It is known that checking a passphrase against a
496 list of pattern or even against a complete dictionary is not very
497 effective to enforce good passphrases. Users will soon figure up
498 ways to bypass such a policy. A better policy is to educate users
499 on good security behavior and optionally to run a passphrase
500 cracker regularly on all users passphrases to catch the very simple
503 '--max-passphrase-days N'
504 Ask the user to change the passphrase if N days have passed since
505 the last change. With '--enforce-passphrase-constraints' set the
506 user may not bypass this check.
508 '--enable-passphrase-history'
509 This option does nothing yet.
511 '--pinentry-invisible-char CHAR'
512 This option asks the Pinentry to use CHAR for displaying hidden
513 characters. CHAR must be one character UTF-8 string. A Pinentry
514 may or may not honor this request.
516 '--pinentry-timeout N'
517 This option asks the Pinentry to timeout after N seconds with no
518 user input. The default value of 0 does not ask the pinentry to
519 timeout, however a Pinentry may use its own default timeout value
520 in this case. A Pinentry may or may not honor this request.
522 '--pinentry-formatted-passphrase'
523 This option asks the Pinentry to enable passphrase formatting when
524 asking the user for a new passphrase and masking of the passphrase
527 If passphrase formatting is enabled, then all non-breaking space
528 characters are stripped from the entered passphrase. Passphrase
529 formatting is mostly useful in combination with passphrases
530 generated with the GENPIN feature of some Pinentries. Note that
531 such a generated passphrase, if not modified by the user, skips all
532 passphrase constraints checking because such constraints would
533 actually weaken the generated passphrase.
535 '--pinentry-program FILENAME'
536 Use program FILENAME as the PIN entry. The default is installation
537 dependent. With the default configuration the name of the default
538 pinentry is 'pinentry'; if that file does not exist but a
539 'pinentry-basic' exist the latter is used.
541 On a Windows platform the default is to use the first existing
542 program from this list: 'bin\pinentry.exe',
543 '..\Gpg4win\bin\pinentry.exe', '..\Gpg4win\pinentry.exe',
544 '..\GNU\GnuPG\pinentry.exe', '..\GNU\bin\pinentry.exe',
545 'bin\pinentry-basic.exe' where the file names are relative to the
546 GnuPG installation directory.
548 '--pinentry-touch-file FILENAME'
549 By default the filename of the socket gpg-agent is listening for
550 requests is passed to Pinentry, so that it can touch that file
551 before exiting (it does this only in curses mode). This option
552 changes the file passed to Pinentry to FILENAME. The special name
553 '/dev/null' may be used to completely disable this feature. Note
554 that Pinentry will not create that file, it will only change the
555 modification and access time.
557 '--scdaemon-program FILENAME'
558 Use program FILENAME as the Smartcard daemon. The default is
559 installation dependent and can be shown with the 'gpgconf' command.
562 Do not make use of the scdaemon tool. This option has the effect
563 of disabling the ability to do smartcard operations. Note, that
564 enabling this option at runtime does not kill an already forked
567 '--disable-check-own-socket'
568 'gpg-agent' employs a periodic self-test to detect a stolen socket.
569 This usually means a second instance of 'gpg-agent' has taken over
570 the socket and 'gpg-agent' will then terminate itself. This option
571 may be used to disable this self-test for debugging purposes.
573 '--use-standard-socket'
574 '--no-use-standard-socket'
575 '--use-standard-socket-p'
576 Since GnuPG 2.1 the standard socket is always used. These options
577 have no more effect. The command 'gpg-agent
578 --use-standard-socket-p' will thus always return success.
584 '--lc-messages STRING'
585 '--xauthority STRING'
586 These options are used with the server mode to pass localization
591 Ignore requests to change the current 'tty' or X window system's
592 'DISPLAY' variable respectively. This is useful to lock the
593 pinentry to pop up at the 'tty' or display you started the agent.
596 Set the size of the queue for pending connections. The default is
599 '--extra-socket NAME'
600 The extra socket is created by default, you may use this option to
601 change the name of the socket. To disable the creation of the
602 socket use "none" or "/dev/null" for NAME.
604 Also listen on native gpg-agent connections on the given socket.
605 The intended use for this extra socket is to setup a Unix domain
606 socket forwarding from a remote machine to this socket on the local
607 machine. A 'gpg' running on the remote machine may then connect to
608 the local gpg-agent and use its private keys. This enables
609 decrypting or signing data on a remote machine without exposing the
610 private keys to the remote machine.
612 '--enable-extended-key-format'
613 '--disable-extended-key-format'
614 Since version 2.2.22 keys are created in the extended private key
615 format by default. Changing the passphrase of a key will also
616 convert the key to that new format. This key format is supported
617 since GnuPG version 2.1.12 and thus there should be no need to
618 disable it. Anyway, the disable option still allows to revert to
619 the old behavior for new keys; be aware that keys are never
620 migrated back to the old format. If the enable option has been
621 used the disable option won't have an effect. The advantage of the
622 extended private key format is that it is text based and can carry
623 additional meta data. In extended key format the OCB mode is used
626 '--enable-ssh-support'
627 '--enable-putty-support'
629 The OpenSSH Agent protocol is always enabled, but 'gpg-agent' will
630 only set the 'SSH_AUTH_SOCK' variable if this flag is given.
632 In this mode of operation, the agent does not only implement the
633 gpg-agent protocol, but also the agent protocol used by OpenSSH
634 (through a separate socket). Consequently, it should be possible
635 to use the gpg-agent as a drop-in replacement for the well known
638 SSH Keys, which are to be used through the agent, need to be added
639 to the gpg-agent initially through the ssh-add utility. When a key
640 is added, ssh-add will ask for the password of the provided key
641 file and send the unprotected key material to the agent; this
642 causes the gpg-agent to ask for a passphrase, which is to be used
643 for encrypting the newly received key and storing it in a gpg-agent
646 Once a key has been added to the gpg-agent this way, the gpg-agent
647 will be ready to use the key.
649 Note: in case the gpg-agent receives a signature request, the user
650 might need to be prompted for a passphrase, which is necessary for
651 decrypting the stored key. Since the ssh-agent protocol does not
652 contain a mechanism for telling the agent on which display/terminal
653 it is running, gpg-agent's ssh-support will use the TTY or X
654 display where gpg-agent has been started. To switch this display
655 to the current one, the following command may be used:
657 gpg-connect-agent updatestartuptty /bye
659 Although all GnuPG components try to start the gpg-agent as needed,
660 this is not possible for the ssh support because ssh does not know
661 about it. Thus if no GnuPG tool which accesses the agent has been
662 run, there is no guarantee that ssh is able to use gpg-agent for
663 authentication. To fix this you may start gpg-agent if needed
664 using this simple command:
666 gpg-connect-agent /bye
668 Adding the '--verbose' shows the progress of starting the agent.
670 The '--enable-putty-support' is only available under Windows and
671 allows the use of gpg-agent with the ssh implementation 'putty'.
672 This is similar to the regular ssh-agent support but makes use of
673 Windows message queue as required by 'putty'.
675 '--ssh-fingerprint-digest'
677 Select the digest algorithm used to compute ssh fingerprints that
678 are communicated to the user, e.g. in pinentry dialogs. OpenSSH
679 has transitioned from using MD5 to the more secure SHA256.
681 '--auto-expand-secmem N'
682 Allow Libgcrypt to expand its secure memory area as required. The
683 optional value N is a non-negative integer with a suggested size in
684 bytes of each additionally allocated secure memory area. The value
685 is rounded up to the next 32 KiB; usual C style prefixes are
686 allowed. For an heavy loaded gpg-agent with many concurrent
687 connection this option avoids sign or decrypt errors due to out of
688 secure memory error returns.
690 '--s2k-calibration MILLISECONDS'
691 Change the default calibration time to MILLISECONDS. The given
692 value is capped at 60 seconds; a value of 0 resets to the
693 compiled-in default. This option is re-read on a SIGHUP (or
694 'gpgconf --reload gpg-agent') and the S2K count is then
698 Specify the iteration count used to protect the passphrase. This
699 option can be used to override the auto-calibration done by
700 default. The auto-calibration computes a count which requires by
701 default 100ms to mangle a given passphrase. See also
704 To view the actually used iteration count and the milliseconds
705 required for an S2K operation use:
707 gpg-connect-agent 'GETINFO s2k_count' /bye
708 gpg-connect-agent 'GETINFO s2k_time' /bye
710 To view the auto-calibrated count use:
712 gpg-connect-agent 'GETINFO s2k_count_cal' /bye
715 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent Configuration, Next: Agent Signals, Prev: Agent Options, Up: Invoking GPG-AGENT
720 There are a few configuration files needed for the operation of the
721 agent. By default they may all be found in the current home directory
722 (*note option --homedir::).
725 This is the standard configuration file read by 'gpg-agent' on
726 startup. It may contain any valid long option; the leading two
727 dashes may not be entered and the option may not be abbreviated.
728 This file is also read after a 'SIGHUP' however only a few options
729 will actually have an effect. This default name may be changed on
730 the command line (*note option --options::). You should backup
734 This is the list of trusted keys. You should backup this file.
736 Comment lines, indicated by a leading hash mark, as well as empty
737 lines are ignored. To mark a key as trusted you need to enter its
738 fingerprint followed by a space and a capital letter 'S'. Colons
739 may optionally be used to separate the bytes of a fingerprint; this
740 enables cutting and pasting the fingerprint from a key listing
741 output. If the line is prefixed with a '!' the key is explicitly
742 marked as not trusted.
744 Here is an example where two keys are marked as ultimately trusted
745 and one as not trusted:
747 # CN=Wurzel ZS 3,O=Intevation GmbH,C=DE
748 A6935DD34EF3087973C706FC311AA2CCF733765B S
750 # CN=PCA-1-Verwaltung-02/O=PKI-1-Verwaltung/C=DE
751 DC:BD:69:25:48:BD:BB:7E:31:6E:BB:80:D3:00:80:35:D4:F8:A6:CD S
753 # CN=Root-CA/O=Schlapphuete/L=Pullach/C=DE
754 !14:56:98:D3:FE:9C:CA:5A:31:6E:BC:81:D3:11:4E:00:90:A3:44:C2 S
756 Before entering a key into this file, you need to ensure its
757 authenticity. How to do this depends on your organisation; your
758 administrator might have already entered those keys which are
759 deemed trustworthy enough into this file. Places where to look for
760 the fingerprint of a root certificate are letters received from the
761 CA or the website of the CA (after making 100% sure that this is
762 indeed the website of that CA). You may want to consider
763 disallowing interactive updates of this file by using the *note
764 option --no-allow-mark-trusted::. It might even be advisable to
765 change the permissions to read-only so that this file can't be
766 changed inadvertently.
768 As a special feature a line 'include-default' will include a global
769 list of trusted certificates (e.g. '/etc/gnupg/trustlist.txt').
770 This global list is also used if the local list is not available;
771 the *note option --no-user-trustlist:: enforces the use of only
774 It is possible to add further flags after the 'S' for use by the
778 Relax checking of some root certificate requirements. As of
779 now this flag allows the use of root certificates with a
780 missing basicConstraints attribute (despite that it is a MUST
781 for CA certificates) and disables CRL checking for the root
785 If validation of a certificate finally issued by a CA with
786 this flag set fails, try again using the chain validation
790 This file is used when support for the secure shell agent protocol
791 has been enabled (*note option --enable-ssh-support::). Only keys
792 present in this file are used in the SSH protocol. You should
795 The 'ssh-add' tool may be used to add new entries to this file; you
796 may also add them manually. Comment lines, indicated by a leading
797 hash mark, as well as empty lines are ignored. An entry starts
798 with optional whitespace, followed by the keygrip of the key given
799 as 40 hex digits, optionally followed by the caching TTL in seconds
800 and another optional field for arbitrary flags. A non-zero TTL
801 overrides the global default as set by '--default-cache-ttl-ssh'.
803 The only flag support is 'confirm'. If this flag is found for a
804 key, each use of the key will pop up a pinentry to confirm the use
805 of that key. The flag is automatically set if a new key was loaded
806 into 'gpg-agent' using the option '-c' of the 'ssh-add' command.
808 The keygrip may be prefixed with a '!' to disable an entry.
810 The following example lists exactly one key. Note that keys
811 available through a OpenPGP smartcard in the active smartcard
812 reader are implicitly added to this list; i.e. there is no need to
815 # Key added on: 2011-07-20 20:38:46
816 # Fingerprint: 5e:8d:c4:ad:e7:af:6e:27:8a:d6:13:e4:79:ad:0b:81
817 34B62F25E277CF13D3C6BCEBFD3F85D08F0A864B 0 confirm
821 This is the directory where gpg-agent stores the private keys.
822 Each key is stored in a file with the name made up of the keygrip
823 and the suffix 'key'. You should backup all files in this
824 directory and take great care to keep this backup closed away.
826 Note that on larger installations, it is useful to put predefined
827 files into the directory '/etc/skel/.gnupg' so that newly created users
828 start up with a working configuration. For existing users the a small
829 helper script is provided to create these files (*note addgnupghome::).
832 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent Signals, Next: Agent Examples, Prev: Agent Configuration, Up: Invoking GPG-AGENT
834 2.4 Use of some signals
835 =======================
837 A running 'gpg-agent' may be controlled by signals, i.e. using the
838 'kill' command to send a signal to the process.
840 Here is a list of supported signals:
843 This signal flushes all cached passphrases and if the program has
844 been started with a configuration file, the configuration file is
845 read again. Only certain options are honored: 'quiet', 'verbose',
846 'debug', 'debug-all', 'debug-level', 'debug-pinentry', 'no-grab',
847 'pinentry-program', 'pinentry-invisible-char', 'default-cache-ttl',
848 'max-cache-ttl', 'ignore-cache-for-signing', 's2k-count',
849 'no-allow-external-cache', 'allow-emacs-pinentry',
850 'no-allow-mark-trusted', 'disable-scdaemon', and
851 'disable-check-own-socket'. 'scdaemon-program' is also supported
852 but due to the current implementation, which calls the scdaemon
853 only once, it is not of much use unless you manually kill the
857 Shuts down the process but waits until all current requests are
858 fulfilled. If the process has received 3 of these signals and
859 requests are still pending, a shutdown is forced.
862 Shuts down the process immediately.
865 Dump internal information to the log file.
868 This signal is used for internal purposes.
871 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent Examples, Next: Agent Protocol, Prev: Agent Signals, Up: Invoking GPG-AGENT
876 It is important to set the environment variable 'GPG_TTY' in your login
877 shell, for example in the '~/.bashrc' init script:
879 export GPG_TTY=$(tty)
881 If you enabled the Ssh Agent Support, you also need to tell ssh about
882 it by adding this to your init script:
885 if [ "${gnupg_SSH_AUTH_SOCK_by:-0}" -ne $$ ]; then
886 export SSH_AUTH_SOCK="$(gpgconf --list-dirs agent-ssh-socket)"
890 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent Protocol, Prev: Agent Examples, Up: Invoking GPG-AGENT
892 2.6 Agent's Assuan Protocol
893 ===========================
895 Note: this section does only document the protocol, which is used by
896 GnuPG components; it does not deal with the ssh-agent protocol. To see
897 the full specification of each command, use
899 gpg-connect-agent 'help COMMAND' /bye
901 or just 'help' to list all available commands.
903 The 'gpg-agent' daemon is started on demand by the GnuPG components.
905 To identify a key we use a thing called keygrip which is the SHA-1
906 hash of an canonical encoded S-Expression of the public key as used in
907 Libgcrypt. For the purpose of this interface the keygrip is given as a
908 hex string. The advantage of using this and not the hash of a
909 certificate is that it will be possible to use the same keypair for
910 different protocols, thereby saving space on the token used to keep the
913 The 'gpg-agent' may send status messages during a command or when
914 returning from a command to inform a client about the progress or result
915 of an operation. For example, the INQUIRE_MAXLEN status message may be
916 sent during a server inquire to inform the client of the maximum usable
917 length of the inquired data (which should not be exceeded).
921 * Agent PKDECRYPT:: Decrypting a session key
922 * Agent PKSIGN:: Signing a Hash
923 * Agent GENKEY:: Generating a Key
924 * Agent IMPORT:: Importing a Secret Key
925 * Agent EXPORT:: Exporting a Secret Key
926 * Agent ISTRUSTED:: Importing a Root Certificate
927 * Agent GET_PASSPHRASE:: Ask for a passphrase
928 * Agent CLEAR_PASSPHRASE:: Expire a cached passphrase
929 * Agent PRESET_PASSPHRASE:: Set a passphrase for a keygrip
930 * Agent GET_CONFIRMATION:: Ask for confirmation
931 * Agent HAVEKEY:: Check whether a key is available
932 * Agent LEARN:: Register a smartcard
933 * Agent PASSWD:: Change a Passphrase
934 * Agent UPDATESTARTUPTTY:: Change the Standard Display
935 * Agent GETEVENTCOUNTER:: Get the Event Counters
936 * Agent GETINFO:: Return information about the process
937 * Agent OPTION:: Set options for the session
940 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent PKDECRYPT, Next: Agent PKSIGN, Up: Agent Protocol
942 2.6.1 Decrypting a session key
943 ------------------------------
945 The client asks the server to decrypt a session key. The encrypted
946 session key should have all information needed to select the appropriate
947 secret key or to delegate it to a smartcard.
951 Tell the server about the key to be used for decryption. If this is
952 not used, 'gpg-agent' may try to figure out the key by trying to decrypt
953 the message with each key available.
957 The agent checks whether this command is allowed and then does an
958 INQUIRY to get the ciphertext the client should then send the cipher
961 S: INQUIRE CIPHERTEXT
966 Please note that the server may send status info lines while reading
967 the data lines from the client. The data send is a SPKI like S-Exp with
972 (<param_name1> <mpi>)
974 (<param_namen> <mpi>)))
976 Where algo is a string with the name of the algorithm; see the
977 libgcrypt documentation for a list of valid algorithms. The number and
978 names of the parameters depend on the algorithm. The agent does return
979 an error if there is an inconsistency.
981 If the decryption was successful the decrypted data is returned by
984 Here is an example session:
986 S: INQUIRE CIPHERTEXT
987 C: D (enc-val elg (a 349324324)
988 C: D (b 3F444677CA)))
990 S: # session key follows
992 S: D (value 1234567890ABCDEF0)
993 S: OK decryption successful
995 The “PADDING” status line is only send if gpg-agent can tell what
996 kind of padding is used. As of now only the value 0 is used to indicate
997 that the padding has been removed.
1000 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent PKSIGN, Next: Agent GENKEY, Prev: Agent PKDECRYPT, Up: Agent Protocol
1002 2.6.2 Signing a Hash
1003 --------------------
1005 The client asks the agent to sign a given hash value. A default key
1006 will be chosen if no key has been set. To set a key a client first
1011 This can be used multiple times to create multiple signature, the
1012 list of keys is reset with the next PKSIGN command or a RESET. The
1013 server tests whether the key is a valid key to sign something and
1016 SETHASH --hash=<name>|<algo> <hexstring>
1018 The client can use this command to tell the server about the data
1019 <hexstring> (which usually is a hash) to be signed. <algo> is the
1020 decimal encoded hash algorithm number as used by Libgcrypt. Either
1021 <algo> or -hash=<name> must be given. Valid names for <name> are:
1024 The SHA-1 hash algorithm
1026 The SHA-256 hash algorithm
1028 The RIPE-MD160 hash algorithm
1030 The old and broken MD5 hash algorithm
1032 A combined hash algorithm as used by the TLS protocol.
1034 The actual signing is done using
1038 Options are not yet defined, but may later be used to choose among
1039 different algorithms. The agent does then some checks, asks for the
1040 passphrase and as a result the server returns the signature as an SPKI
1041 like S-expression in "D" lines:
1045 (<param_name1> <mpi>)
1047 (<param_namen> <mpi>)))
1049 The operation is affected by the option
1051 OPTION use-cache-for-signing=0|1
1053 The default of '1' uses the cache. Setting this option to '0' will
1054 lead 'gpg-agent' to ignore the passphrase cache. Note, that there is
1055 also a global command line option for 'gpg-agent' to globally disable
1058 Here is an example session:
1064 S: # I did ask the user whether he really wants to sign
1065 S: # I did ask the user for the passphrase
1067 C: D ABCDEF012345678901234
1069 S: # signature follows
1070 S: D (sig-val rsa (s 45435453654612121212))
1074 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent GENKEY, Next: Agent IMPORT, Prev: Agent PKSIGN, Up: Agent Protocol
1076 2.6.3 Generating a Key
1077 ----------------------
1079 This is used to create a new keypair and store the secret key inside the
1080 active PSE -- which is in most cases a Soft-PSE. A not-yet-defined
1081 option allows choosing the storage location. To get the secret key out
1082 of the PSE, a special export tool has to be used.
1084 GENKEY [--no-protection] [--preset] [<cache_nonce>]
1086 Invokes the key generation process and the server will then inquire
1087 on the generation parameters, like:
1090 C: D (genkey (rsa (nbits 1024)))
1093 The format of the key parameters which depends on the algorithm is of
1098 (parameter_name_1 ....)
1100 (parameter_name_n ....)))
1102 If everything succeeds, the server returns the *public key* in a SPKI
1103 like S-Expression like this:
1110 Here is an example session:
1113 C: D (genkey (rsa (nbits 1024)))
1116 S: D (rsa (n 326487324683264) (e 10001)))
1119 The '--no-protection' option may be used to prevent prompting for a
1120 passphrase to protect the secret key while leaving the secret key
1121 unprotected. The '--preset' option may be used to add the passphrase to
1122 the cache using the default cache parameters.
1124 The '--inq-passwd' option may be used to create the key with a
1125 supplied passphrase. When used the agent does an inquiry with the
1126 keyword 'NEWPASSWD' to retrieve that passphrase. This option takes
1127 precedence over '--no-protection'; however if the client sends a empty
1128 (zero-length) passphrase, this is identical to '--no-protection'.
1131 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent IMPORT, Next: Agent EXPORT, Prev: Agent GENKEY, Up: Agent Protocol
1133 2.6.4 Importing a Secret Key
1134 ----------------------------
1136 This operation is not yet supported by GpgAgent. Specialized tools are
1137 to be used for this.
1139 There is no actual need because we can expect that secret keys
1140 created by a 3rd party are stored on a smartcard. If we have generated
1141 the key ourselves, we do not need to import it.
1144 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent EXPORT, Next: Agent ISTRUSTED, Prev: Agent IMPORT, Up: Agent Protocol
1146 2.6.5 Export a Secret Key
1147 -------------------------
1151 Should be done by an extra tool.
1154 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent ISTRUSTED, Next: Agent GET_PASSPHRASE, Prev: Agent EXPORT, Up: Agent Protocol
1156 2.6.6 Importing a Root Certificate
1157 ----------------------------------
1159 Actually we do not import a Root Cert but provide a way to validate any
1160 piece of data by storing its Hash along with a description and an
1161 identifier in the PSE. Here is the interface description:
1163 ISTRUSTED <fingerprint>
1165 Check whether the OpenPGP primary key or the X.509 certificate with
1166 the given fingerprint is an ultimately trusted key or a trusted Root CA
1167 certificate. The fingerprint should be given as a hexstring (without
1168 any blanks or colons or whatever in between) and may be left padded with
1169 00 in case of an MD5 fingerprint. GPGAgent will answer with:
1173 The key is in the table of trusted keys.
1175 ERR 304 (Not Trusted)
1177 The key is not in this table.
1179 Gpg needs the entire list of trusted keys to maintain the web of
1180 trust; the following command is therefore quite helpful:
1184 GpgAgent returns a list of trusted keys line by line:
1186 S: D 000000001234454556565656677878AF2F1ECCFF P
1187 S: D 340387563485634856435645634856438576457A P
1188 S: D FEDC6532453745367FD83474357495743757435D S
1191 The first item on a line is the hexified fingerprint where MD5
1192 fingerprints are '00' padded to the left and the second item is a flag
1193 to indicate the type of key (so that gpg is able to only take care of
1194 PGP keys). P = OpenPGP, S = S/MIME. A client should ignore the rest of
1195 the line, so that we can extend the format in the future.
1197 Finally a client should be able to mark a key as trusted:
1199 MARKTRUSTED FINGERPRINT "P"|"S"
1201 The server will then pop up a window to ask the user whether she
1202 really trusts this key. For this it will probably ask for a text to be
1203 displayed like this:
1205 S: INQUIRE TRUSTDESC
1206 C: D Do you trust the key with the fingerprint @FPR@
1207 C: D bla fasel blurb.
1211 Known sequences with the pattern @foo@ are replaced according to this
1215 Format the fingerprint according to gpg rules for a v3 keys.
1217 Format the fingerprint according to gpg rules for a v4 keys.
1219 Choose an appropriate format to format the fingerprint.
1221 Replaced by a single '@'.
1224 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent GET_PASSPHRASE, Next: Agent CLEAR_PASSPHRASE, Prev: Agent ISTRUSTED, Up: Agent Protocol
1226 2.6.7 Ask for a passphrase
1227 --------------------------
1229 This function is usually used to ask for a passphrase to be used for
1230 symmetric encryption, but may also be used by programs which need
1231 special handling of passphrases. This command uses a syntax which helps
1232 clients to use the agent with minimum effort.
1234 GET_PASSPHRASE [--data] [--check] [--no-ask] [--repeat[=N]] \
1235 [--qualitybar] CACHE_ID \
1236 [ERROR_MESSAGE PROMPT DESCRIPTION]
1238 CACHE_ID is expected to be a string used to identify a cached
1239 passphrase. Use a 'X' to bypass the cache. With no other arguments the
1240 agent returns a cached passphrase or an error. By convention either the
1241 hexified fingerprint of the key shall be used for CACHE_ID or an
1242 arbitrary string prefixed with the name of the calling application and a
1243 colon: Like 'gpg:somestring'.
1245 ERROR_MESSAGE is either a single 'X' for no error message or a string
1246 to be shown as an error message like (e.g. "invalid passphrase").
1247 Blanks must be percent escaped or replaced by '+''.
1249 PROMPT is either a single 'X' for a default prompt or the text to be
1250 shown as the prompt. Blanks must be percent escaped or replaced by '+'.
1252 DESCRIPTION is a text shown above the entry field. Blanks must be
1253 percent escaped or replaced by '+'.
1255 The agent either returns with an error or with a OK followed by the
1256 hex encoded passphrase. Note that the length of the strings is
1257 implicitly limited by the maximum length of a command. If the option
1258 '--data' is used, the passphrase is not returned on the OK line but by
1259 regular data lines; this is the preferred method.
1261 If the option '--check' is used, the standard passphrase constraints
1262 checks are applied. A check is not done if the passphrase has been
1265 If the option '--no-ask' is used and the passphrase is not in the
1266 cache the user will not be asked to enter a passphrase but the error
1267 code 'GPG_ERR_NO_DATA' is returned.
1269 If the option '--qualitybar' is used and a minimum passphrase length
1270 has been configured, a visual indication of the entered passphrase
1273 CLEAR_PASSPHRASE CACHE_ID
1275 may be used to invalidate the cache entry for a passphrase. The
1276 function returns with OK even when there is no cached passphrase.
1279 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent CLEAR_PASSPHRASE, Next: Agent PRESET_PASSPHRASE, Prev: Agent GET_PASSPHRASE, Up: Agent Protocol
1281 2.6.8 Remove a cached passphrase
1282 --------------------------------
1284 Use this command to remove a cached passphrase.
1286 CLEAR_PASSPHRASE [--mode=normal] <cache_id>
1288 The '--mode=normal' option can be used to clear a CACHE_ID that was
1292 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent PRESET_PASSPHRASE, Next: Agent GET_CONFIRMATION, Prev: Agent CLEAR_PASSPHRASE, Up: Agent Protocol
1294 2.6.9 Set a passphrase for a keygrip
1295 ------------------------------------
1297 This command adds a passphrase to the cache for the specified KEYGRIP.
1299 PRESET_PASSPHRASE [--inquire] <string_or_keygrip> <timeout> [<hexstring>]
1301 The passphrase is a hexadecimal string when specified. When not
1302 specified, the passphrase will be retrieved from the pinentry module
1303 unless the '--inquire' option was specified in which case the passphrase
1304 will be retrieved from the client.
1306 The TIMEOUT parameter keeps the passphrase cached for the specified
1307 number of seconds. A value of '-1' means infinite while '0' means the
1308 default (currently only a timeout of -1 is allowed, which means to never
1312 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent GET_CONFIRMATION, Next: Agent HAVEKEY, Prev: Agent PRESET_PASSPHRASE, Up: Agent Protocol
1314 2.6.10 Ask for confirmation
1315 ---------------------------
1317 This command may be used to ask for a simple confirmation by presenting
1318 a text and 2 buttons: Okay and Cancel.
1320 GET_CONFIRMATION DESCRIPTION
1322 DESCRIPTIONis displayed along with a Okay and Cancel button. Blanks
1323 must be percent escaped or replaced by '+'. A 'X' may be used to
1324 display confirmation dialog with a default text.
1326 The agent either returns with an error or with a OK. Note, that the
1327 length of DESCRIPTION is implicitly limited by the maximum length of a
1331 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent HAVEKEY, Next: Agent LEARN, Prev: Agent GET_CONFIRMATION, Up: Agent Protocol
1333 2.6.11 Check whether a key is available
1334 ---------------------------------------
1336 This can be used to see whether a secret key is available. It does not
1337 return any information on whether the key is somehow protected.
1341 The agent answers either with OK or 'No_Secret_Key' (208). The
1342 caller may want to check for other error codes as well. More than one
1343 keygrip may be given. In this case the command returns success if at
1344 least one of the keygrips corresponds to an available secret key.
1347 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent LEARN, Next: Agent PASSWD, Prev: Agent HAVEKEY, Up: Agent Protocol
1349 2.6.12 Register a smartcard
1350 ---------------------------
1354 This command is used to register a smartcard. With the '--send'
1355 option given the certificates are sent back.
1358 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent PASSWD, Next: Agent UPDATESTARTUPTTY, Prev: Agent LEARN, Up: Agent Protocol
1360 2.6.13 Change a Passphrase
1361 --------------------------
1363 PASSWD [--cache-nonce=<c>] [--passwd-nonce=<s>] [--preset] KEYGRIP
1365 This command is used to interactively change the passphrase of the
1366 key identified by the hex string KEYGRIP. The '--preset' option may be
1367 used to add the new passphrase to the cache using the default cache
1371 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent UPDATESTARTUPTTY, Next: Agent GETEVENTCOUNTER, Prev: Agent PASSWD, Up: Agent Protocol
1373 2.6.14 Change the standard display
1374 ----------------------------------
1378 Set the startup TTY and X-DISPLAY variables to the values of this
1379 session. This command is useful to direct future pinentry invocations
1380 to another screen. It is only required because there is no way in the
1381 ssh-agent protocol to convey this information.
1384 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent GETEVENTCOUNTER, Next: Agent GETINFO, Prev: Agent UPDATESTARTUPTTY, Up: Agent Protocol
1386 2.6.15 Get the Event Counters
1387 -----------------------------
1391 This function return one status line with the current values of the
1392 event counters. The event counters are useful to avoid polling by
1393 delaying a poll until something has changed. The values are decimal
1394 numbers in the range '0' to 'UINT_MAX' and wrapping around to 0. The
1395 actual values should not be relied upon; they shall only be used to
1398 The currently defined counters are:
1400 Incremented with any change of any of the other counters.
1402 Incremented for added or removed private keys.
1404 Incremented for changes of the card readers stati.
1407 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent GETINFO, Next: Agent OPTION, Prev: Agent GETEVENTCOUNTER, Up: Agent Protocol
1409 2.6.16 Return information about the process
1410 -------------------------------------------
1412 This is a multipurpose function to return a variety of information.
1416 The value of WHAT specifies the kind of information returned:
1418 Return the version of the program.
1420 Return the process id of the process.
1422 Return the name of the socket used to connect the agent.
1424 Return the name of the socket used for SSH connections. If SSH
1425 support has not been enabled the error 'GPG_ERR_NO_DATA' will be
1429 File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent OPTION, Prev: Agent GETINFO, Up: Agent Protocol
1431 2.6.17 Set options for the session
1432 ----------------------------------
1434 Here is a list of session options which are not yet described with other
1435 commands. The general syntax for an Assuan option is:
1442 This may be used to tell gpg-agent of which gpg-agent version the
1443 client is aware of. gpg-agent uses this information to enable
1444 features which might break older clients.
1447 Change the session's environment to be used for the Pinentry.
1453 Set envvar NAME to the empty string
1455 Set envvar NAME to the string VALUE.
1457 'use-cache-for-signing'
1458 See Assuan command 'PKSIGN'.
1460 'allow-pinentry-notify'
1461 This does not need any value. It is used to enable the
1462 PINENTRY_LAUNCHED inquiry.
1465 This option is used to change the operation mode of the pinentry.
1466 The following values are defined:
1469 This is the default mode which pops up a pinentry as needed.
1472 Instead of popping up a pinentry, return the error code
1476 Instead of popping up a pinentry, return the error code
1477 'GPG_ERR_NO_PIN_ENTRY'.
1480 Use a loopback pinentry. This fakes a pinentry by using
1481 inquiries back to the caller to ask for a passphrase. This
1482 option may only be set if the agent has been configured for
1483 that. To disable this feature use *note option
1484 --no-allow-loopback-pinentry::.
1486 'cache-ttl-opt-preset'
1487 This option sets the cache TTL for new entries created by GENKEY
1488 and PASSWD commands when using the '--preset' option. It is not
1489 used a default value is used.
1492 Instead of using the standard S2K count (which is computed on the
1493 fly), the given S2K count is used for new keys or when changing the
1494 passphrase of a key. Values below 65536 are considered to be 0.
1495 This option is valid for the entire session or until reset to 0.
1496 This option is useful if the key is later used on boxes which are
1497 either much slower or faster than the actual box.
1499 'pretend-request-origin'
1500 This option switches the connection into a restricted mode which
1501 handles all further commands in the same way as they would be
1502 handled when originating from the extra or browser socket. Note
1503 that this option is not available in the restricted mode. Valid
1504 values for this option are:
1508 This is a NOP and leaves the connection in the standard way.
1511 Pretend to come from a remote origin in the same way as
1512 connections from the '--extra-socket'.
1515 Pretend to come from a local web browser in the same way as
1516 connections from the '--browser-socket'.
1519 File: gnupg.info, Node: Invoking DIRMNGR, Next: Invoking GPG, Prev: Invoking GPG-AGENT, Up: Top
1524 Since version 2.1 of GnuPG, 'dirmngr' takes care of accessing the
1525 OpenPGP keyservers. As with previous versions it is also used as a
1526 server for managing and downloading certificate revocation lists (CRLs)
1527 for X.509 certificates, downloading X.509 certificates, and providing
1528 access to OCSP providers. Dirmngr is invoked internally by 'gpg',
1529 'gpgsm', or via the 'gpg-connect-agent' tool.
1531 *Note Option Index::,for an index to 'DIRMNGR''s commands and options.
1535 * Dirmngr Commands:: List of all commands.
1536 * Dirmngr Options:: List of all options.
1537 * Dirmngr Configuration:: Configuration files.
1538 * Dirmngr Signals:: Use of signals.
1539 * Dirmngr Examples:: Some usage examples.
1540 * Dirmngr Protocol:: The protocol dirmngr uses.
1543 File: gnupg.info, Node: Dirmngr Commands, Next: Dirmngr Options, Up: Invoking DIRMNGR
1548 Commands are not distinguished from options except for the fact that
1549 only one command is allowed.
1552 Print the program version and licensing information. Note that you
1553 cannot abbreviate this command.
1556 Print a usage message summarizing the most useful command-line
1557 options. Note that you cannot abbreviate this command.
1560 Print a list of all available options and commands. Note that you
1561 cannot abbreviate this command.
1564 Run in server mode and wait for commands on the 'stdin'. The
1565 default mode is to create a socket and listen for commands there.
1566 This is only used for testing.
1569 Run in background daemon mode and listen for commands on a socket.
1570 This is the way 'dirmngr' is started on demand by the other GnuPG
1571 components. To force starting 'dirmngr' it is in general best to
1572 use 'gpgconf --launch dirmngr'.
1575 Run in the foreground, sending logs to stderr, and listening on
1576 file descriptor 3, which must already be bound to a listening
1577 socket. This is useful when running under systemd or other similar
1578 process supervision schemes. This option is not supported on
1582 List the contents of the CRL cache on 'stdout'. This is probably
1583 only useful for debugging purposes.
1586 This command requires a filename as additional argument, and it
1587 will make Dirmngr try to import the CRL in FILE into it's cache.
1588 Note, that this is only possible if Dirmngr is able to retrieve the
1589 CA's certificate directly by its own means. In general it is
1590 better to use 'gpgsm''s '--call-dirmngr loadcrl filename' command
1591 so that 'gpgsm' can help dirmngr.
1594 This command requires an URL as additional argument, and it will
1595 make dirmngr try to retrieve and import the CRL from that URL into
1596 it's cache. This is mainly useful for debugging purposes. The
1597 'dirmngr-client' provides the same feature for a running dirmngr.
1600 This commands shuts down an running instance of Dirmngr. This
1601 command has currently no effect.
1604 This command removes all CRLs from Dirmngr's cache. Client
1605 requests will thus trigger reading of fresh CRLs.
1608 File: gnupg.info, Node: Dirmngr Options, Next: Dirmngr Configuration, Prev: Dirmngr Commands, Up: Invoking DIRMNGR
1613 Note that all long options with the exception of '--options' and
1614 '--homedir' may also be given in the configuration file after stripping
1615 off the two leading dashes.
1618 Reads configuration from FILE instead of from the default per-user
1619 configuration file. The default configuration file is named
1620 'dirmngr.conf' and expected in the home directory.
1623 Set the name of the home directory to DIR. This option is only
1624 effective when used on the command line. The default is the
1625 directory named '.gnupg' directly below the home directory of the
1626 user unless the environment variable 'GNUPGHOME' has been set in
1627 which case its value will be used. Many kinds of data are stored
1628 within this directory.
1632 Outputs additional information while running. You can increase the
1633 verbosity by giving several verbose commands to DIRMNGR, such as
1637 Append all logging output to FILE. This is very helpful in seeing
1638 what the agent actually does. Use 'socket://' to log to socket.
1640 '--debug-level LEVEL'
1641 Select the debug level for investigating problems. LEVEL may be a
1642 numeric value or by a keyword:
1645 No debugging at all. A value of less than 1 may be used
1646 instead of the keyword.
1648 Some basic debug messages. A value between 1 and 2 may be
1649 used instead of the keyword.
1651 More verbose debug messages. A value between 3 and 5 may be
1652 used instead of the keyword.
1654 Even more detailed messages. A value between 6 and 8 may be
1655 used instead of the keyword.
1657 All of the debug messages you can get. A value greater than 8
1658 may be used instead of the keyword. The creation of hash
1659 tracing files is only enabled if the keyword is used.
1661 How these messages are mapped to the actual debugging flags is not
1662 specified and may change with newer releases of this program. They
1663 are however carefully selected to best aid in debugging.
1666 Set debugging flags. This option is only useful for debugging and
1667 its behavior may change with a new release. All flags are or-ed
1668 and may be given in C syntax (e.g. 0x0042) or as a comma separated
1669 list of flag names. To get a list of all supported flags the
1670 single word "help" can be used.
1673 Same as '--debug=0xffffffff'
1676 Enable debugging of the TLS layer at LEVEL. The details of the
1677 debug level depend on the used TLS library and are not set in
1681 When running in server mode, wait N seconds before entering the
1682 actual processing loop and print the pid. This gives time to
1685 '--disable-check-own-socket'
1686 On some platforms 'dirmngr' is able to detect the removal of its
1687 socket file and shutdown itself. This option disable this
1688 self-test for debugging purposes.
1694 Format the info output in daemon mode for use with the standard
1695 Bourne shell respective the C-shell. The default is to guess it
1696 based on the environment variable 'SHELL' which is in almost all
1700 Enabling this option forces loading of expired CRLs; this is only
1701 useful for debugging.
1705 The option '--use-tor' switches Dirmngr and thus GnuPG into "Tor
1706 mode" to route all network access via Tor (an anonymity network).
1707 Certain other features are disabled in this mode. The effect of
1708 '--use-tor' cannot be overridden by any other command or even by
1709 reloading dirmngr. The use of '--no-use-tor' disables the use of
1710 Tor. The default is to use Tor if it is available on startup or
1711 after reloading dirmngr. The test on the available of Tor is done
1712 by trying to connects to a SOCKS proxy at either port 9050 or
1713 9150); if another type of proxy is listening on one of these ports,
1714 you should use '--no-use-tor'.
1716 '--standard-resolver'
1717 This option forces the use of the system's standard DNS resolver
1718 code. This is mainly used for debugging. Note that on Windows a
1719 standard resolver is not used and all DNS access will return the
1720 error "Not Implemented" if this option is used. Using this
1721 together with enabled Tor mode returns the error "Not Enabled".
1723 '--recursive-resolver'
1724 When possible use a recursive resolver instead of a stub resolver.
1726 '--resolver-timeout N'
1727 Set the timeout for the DNS resolver to N seconds. The default are
1730 '--connect-timeout N'
1731 '--connect-quick-timeout N'
1732 Set the timeout for HTTP and generic TCP connection attempts to N
1733 seconds. The value set with the quick variant is used when the
1734 -quick option has been given to certain Assuan commands. The quick
1735 value is capped at the value of the regular connect timeout. The
1736 default values are 15 and 2 seconds. Note that the timeout values
1737 are for each connection attempt; the connection code will attempt
1738 to connect all addresses listed for a server.
1740 '--listen-backlog N'
1741 Set the size of the queue for pending connections. The default is
1744 '--allow-version-check'
1745 Allow Dirmngr to connect to 'https://versions.gnupg.org' to get the
1746 list of current software versions. If this option is enabled the
1747 list is retrieved in case the local copy does not exist or is older
1748 than 5 to 7 days. See the option '--query-swdb' of the command
1749 'gpgconf' for more details. Note, that regardless of this option a
1750 version check can always be triggered using this command:
1752 gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'loadswdb --force' /bye
1755 Use NAME as your keyserver. This is the server that 'gpg'
1756 communicates with to receive keys, send keys, and search for keys.
1757 The format of the NAME is a URI: 'scheme:[//]keyservername[:port]'
1758 The scheme is the type of keyserver: "hkp" for the HTTP (or
1759 compatible) keyservers, "ldap" for the LDAP keyservers, or "mailto"
1760 for the Graff email keyserver. Note that your particular
1761 installation of GnuPG may have other keyserver types available as
1762 well. Keyserver schemes are case-insensitive. After the keyserver
1763 name, optional keyserver configuration options may be provided.
1764 These are the same as the '--keyserver-options' of 'gpg', but apply
1765 only to this particular keyserver.
1767 Most keyservers synchronize with each other, so there is generally
1768 no need to send keys to more than one server. Somes keyservers use
1769 round robin DNS to give a different keyserver each time you use it.
1771 If exactly two keyservers are configured and only one is a Tor
1772 hidden service (.onion), Dirmngr selects the keyserver to use
1773 depending on whether Tor is locally running or not. The check for
1774 a running Tor is done for each new connection.
1776 If no keyserver is explicitly configured, dirmngr will use the
1777 built-in default of 'https://keyserver.ubuntu.com'.
1779 Windows users with a keyserver running on their Active Directory
1780 may use the short form 'ldap:///' for NAME to access this
1783 For accessing anonymous LDAP keyservers NAME is in general just a
1784 'ldaps://ldap.example.com'. A BaseDN parameter should never be
1785 specified. If authentication is required things are more
1786 complicated and two methods are available:
1788 The modern method (since version 2.2.28) is to use the very same
1789 syntax as used with the option '--ldapserver'. Please see over
1790 there for details; here is an example:
1792 keyserver ldap:ldap.example.com::uid=USERNAME,ou=GnuPG Users,
1793 dc=example,dc=com:PASSWORD::starttls
1795 The other method is to use a full URL for NAME; for example:
1797 keyserver ldaps://ldap.example.com/????bindname=uid=USERNAME
1798 %2Cou=GnuPG%20Users%2Cdc=example%2Cdc=com,password=PASSWORD
1800 Put this all on one line without any spaces and keep the '%2C' as
1801 given. Replace USERNAME, PASSWORD, and the 'dc' parts according to
1802 the instructions received from your LDAP administrator. Note that
1803 only simple authentication (i.e. cleartext passwords) is supported
1804 and thus using ldaps is strongly suggested (since 2.2.28 "ldaps"
1805 defaults to port 389 and uses STARTTLS). On Windows authentication
1806 via AD can be requested by adding 'gpgNtds=1' after the fourth
1807 question mark instead of the bindname and password parameter.
1809 '--nameserver IPADDR'
1810 In "Tor mode" Dirmngr uses a public resolver via Tor to resolve DNS
1811 names. If the default public resolver, which is '8.8.8.8', shall
1812 not be used a different one can be given using this option. Note
1813 that a numerical IP address must be given (IPv6 or IPv4) and that
1814 no error checking is done for IPADDR.
1818 Disable the use of all IPv4 or IPv6 addresses.
1821 Entirely disables the use of LDAP.
1824 Entirely disables the use of HTTP.
1827 When looking for the location of a CRL, the to be tested
1828 certificate usually contains so called "CRL Distribution Point"
1829 (DP) entries which are URLs describing the way to access the CRL.
1830 The first found DP entry is used. With this option all entries
1831 using the HTTP scheme are ignored when looking for a suitable DP.
1834 This is similar to '--ignore-http-dp' but ignores entries using the
1835 LDAP scheme. Both options may be combined resulting in ignoring
1838 '--ignore-ocsp-service-url'
1839 Ignore all OCSP URLs contained in the certificate. The effect is
1840 to force the use of the default responder.
1842 '--honor-http-proxy'
1843 If the environment variable 'http_proxy' has been set, use its
1844 value to access HTTP servers.
1846 '--http-proxy [http://]HOST[:PORT]'
1847 Use HOST and PORT to access HTTP servers. The use of this option
1848 overrides the environment variable 'http_proxy' regardless whether
1849 '--honor-http-proxy' has been set.
1851 '--ldap-proxy HOST[:PORT]'
1852 Use HOST and PORT to connect to LDAP servers. If PORT is omitted,
1853 port 389 (standard LDAP port) is used. This overrides any
1854 specified host and port part in a LDAP URL and will also be used if
1855 host and port have been omitted from the URL.
1858 Never use anything else but the LDAP "proxy" as configured with
1859 '--ldap-proxy'. Usually 'dirmngr' tries to use other configured
1860 LDAP server if the connection using the "proxy" failed.
1862 '--ldapserverlist-file FILE'
1863 Read the list of LDAP servers to consult for CRLs and X.509
1864 certificates from file instead of the default per-user ldap server
1865 list file. The default value for FILE is
1866 'dirmngr_ldapservers.conf'.
1868 This server list file contains one LDAP server per line in the
1871 HOSTNAME:PORT:USERNAME:PASSWORD:BASE_DN:FLAGS
1873 Lines starting with a '#' are comments.
1875 Note that as usual all strings entered are expected to be UTF-8
1876 encoded. Obviously this will lead to problems if the password has
1877 originally been encoded as Latin-1. There is no other solution
1878 here than to put such a password in the binary encoding into the
1879 file (i.e. non-ascii characters won't show up readable).(1)
1882 This is an alternative way to specify LDAP servers for CRL and
1883 X.509 certificate retrieval. If this option is used the servers
1884 configured in 'dirmngr_ldapservers.conf' (or the file given by
1885 '--ldapserverlist-file') are cleared. Note that
1886 'dirmngr_ldapservers.conf' is not read again by a reload signal.
1887 However, '--ldapserver' options are read again.
1889 SPEC is either a proper LDAP URL or a colon delimited list of the
1892 HOSTNAME:PORT:USERNAME:PASSWORD:BASE_DN:FLAGS:
1894 with an optional prefix of 'ldap:' (but without the two slashes
1895 which would turn this into a proper LDAP URL). FLAGS is a list of
1896 one or more comma delimited keywords:
1898 The default: Do not use a TLS secured connection at all; the
1899 default port is 389.
1901 Use STARTTLS to secure the connection; the default port is
1904 Tunnel LDAP through a TLS connection; the default port is 636.
1906 On Windows authenticate the LDAP connection using the Active
1907 Directory with the current user.
1909 Note that in an URL style specification the scheme 'ldaps://'
1910 refers to STARTTLS and _not_ to LDAP-over-TLS.
1912 '--ldaptimeout SECS'
1913 Specify the number of seconds to wait for an LDAP query before
1914 timing out. The default are 15 seconds. 0 will never timeout.
1917 This option makes dirmngr add any servers it discovers when
1918 validating certificates against CRLs to the internal list of
1919 servers to consult for certificates and CRLs.
1921 This option is useful when trying to validate a certificate that
1922 has a CRL distribution point that points to a server that is not
1923 already listed in the ldapserverlist. Dirmngr will always go to
1924 this server and try to download the CRL, but chances are high that
1925 the certificate used to sign the CRL is located on the same server.
1926 So if dirmngr doesn't add that new server to list, it will often
1927 not be able to verify the signature of the CRL unless the
1928 '--add-servers' option is used.
1930 Note: The current version of dirmngr has this option disabled by
1934 This option enables OCSP support if requested by the client.
1936 OCSP requests are rejected by default because they may violate the
1937 privacy of the user; for example it is possible to track the time
1938 when a user is reading a mail.
1940 '--ocsp-responder URL'
1941 Use URL as the default OCSP Responder if the certificate does not
1942 contain information about an assigned responder. Note, that
1943 '--ocsp-signer' must also be set to a valid certificate.
1945 '--ocsp-signer FPR|FILE'
1946 Use the certificate with the fingerprint FPR to check the responses
1947 of the default OCSP Responder. Alternatively a filename can be
1948 given in which case the response is expected to be signed by one of
1949 the certificates described in that file. Any argument which
1950 contains a slash, dot or tilde is considered a filename. Usual
1951 filename expansion takes place: A tilde at the start followed by a
1952 slash is replaced by the content of 'HOME', no slash at start
1953 describes a relative filename which will be searched at the home
1954 directory. To make sure that the FILE is searched in the home
1955 directory, either prepend the name with "./" or use a name which
1958 If a response has been signed by a certificate described by these
1959 fingerprints no further check upon the validity of this certificate
1962 The format of the FILE is a list of SHA-1 fingerprint, one per line
1963 with optional colons between the bytes. Empty lines and lines
1964 prefix with a hash mark are ignored.
1966 '--ocsp-max-clock-skew N'
1967 The number of seconds a skew between the OCSP responder and them
1968 local clock is accepted. Default is 600 (10 minutes).
1970 '--ocsp-max-period N'
1971 Seconds a response is at maximum considered valid after the time
1972 given in the thisUpdate field. Default is 7776000 (90 days).
1974 '--ocsp-current-period N'
1975 The number of seconds an OCSP response is considered valid after
1976 the time given in the NEXT_UPDATE datum. Default is 10800 (3
1980 Do not return more that N items in one query. The default is 10.
1982 '--ignore-cert-extension OID'
1983 Add OID to the list of ignored certificate extensions. The OID is
1984 expected to be in dotted decimal form, like '2.5.29.3'. This
1985 option may be used more than once. Critical flagged certificate
1986 extensions matching one of the OIDs in the list are treated as if
1987 they are actually handled and thus the certificate won't be
1988 rejected due to an unknown critical extension. Use this option
1989 with care because extensions are usually flagged as critical for a
1992 '--ignore-cert FPR|FILE'
1993 Entirely ignore certificates with the fingerprint FPR. As an
1994 alternative to the fingerprint a filename can be given in which
1995 case all certificates described in that file are ignored. Any
1996 argument which contains a slash, dot or tilde is considered a
1997 filename. Usual filename expansion takes place: A tilde at the
1998 start followed by a slash is replaced by the content of 'HOME', no
1999 slash at start describes a relative filename which will be searched
2000 at the home directory. To make sure that the FILE is searched in
2001 the home directory, either prepend the name with "./" or use a name
2002 which contains a dot. The format of such a file is a list of SHA-1
2003 fingerprint, one per line with optional colons between the bytes.
2004 Empty lines and lines prefixed with a hash mark are ignored.
2006 This option is useful as a quick workaround to exclude certain
2007 certificates from the system store.
2010 Use the root certificates in FILE for verification of the TLS
2011 certificates used with 'hkps' (keyserver access over TLS). If the
2012 file is in PEM format a suffix of '.pem' is expected for FILE.
2013 This option may be given multiple times to add more root
2014 certificates. Tilde expansion is supported.
2016 If no 'hkp-cacert' directive is present, dirmngr will use the
2019 ---------- Footnotes ----------
2021 (1) The 'gpgconf' tool might be helpful for frontends as it enables
2022 editing this configuration file using percent-escaped strings.
2025 File: gnupg.info, Node: Dirmngr Configuration, Next: Dirmngr Signals, Prev: Dirmngr Options, Up: Invoking DIRMNGR
2030 Dirmngr makes use of several directories when running in daemon mode:
2031 There are a few configuration files whih control the operation of
2032 dirmngr. By default they may all be found in the current home directory
2033 (*note option --homedir::).
2036 This is the standard configuration file read by 'dirmngr' on
2037 startup. It may contain any valid long option; the leading two
2038 dashes may not be entered and the option may not be abbreviated.
2039 This file is also read after a 'SIGHUP' however not all options
2040 will actually have an effect. This default name may be changed on
2041 the command line (*note option --options::). You should backup
2044 '/etc/gnupg/trusted-certs'
2045 This directory should be filled with certificates of Root CAs you
2046 are trusting in checking the CRLs and signing OCSP Responses.
2048 Usually these are the same certificates you use with the
2049 applications making use of dirmngr. It is expected that each of
2050 these certificate files contain exactly one DER encoded certificate
2051 in a file with the suffix '.crt' or '.der'. 'dirmngr' reads those
2052 certificates on startup and when given a SIGHUP. Certificates which
2053 are not readable or do not make up a proper X.509 certificate are
2054 ignored; see the log file for details.
2056 Applications using dirmngr (e.g. gpgsm) can request these
2057 certificates to complete a trust chain in the same way as with the
2058 extra-certs directory (see below).
2060 Note that for OCSP responses the certificate specified using the
2061 option '--ocsp-signer' is always considered valid to sign OCSP
2064 '/etc/gnupg/extra-certs'
2065 This directory may contain extra certificates which are preloaded
2066 into the internal cache on startup. Applications using dirmngr
2067 (e.g. gpgsm) can request cached certificates to complete a trust
2068 chain. This is convenient in cases you have a couple intermediate
2069 CA certificates or certificates usually used to sign OCSP
2070 responses. These certificates are first tried before going out to
2071 the net to look for them. These certificates must also be DER
2072 encoded and suffixed with '.crt' or '.der'.
2075 This directory is used to store cached CRLs. The 'crls.d' part
2076 will be created by dirmngr if it does not exists but you need to
2077 make sure that the upper directory exists.
2079 To be able to see what's going on you should create the configure
2080 file '~/gnupg/dirmngr.conf' with at least one line:
2082 log-file ~/dirmngr.log
2084 To be able to perform OCSP requests you probably want to add the
2089 To make sure that new options are read and that after the
2090 installation of a new GnuPG versions the installed dirmngr is running,
2091 you may want to kill an existing dirmngr first:
2093 gpgconf --kill dirmngr
2095 You may check the log file to see whether all desired root
2096 certificates have been loaded correctly.
2099 File: gnupg.info, Node: Dirmngr Signals, Next: Dirmngr Examples, Prev: Dirmngr Configuration, Up: Invoking DIRMNGR
2104 A running 'dirmngr' may be controlled by signals, i.e. using the 'kill'
2105 command to send a signal to the process.
2107 Here is a list of supported signals:
2110 This signal flushes all internally cached CRLs as well as any
2111 cached certificates. Then the certificate cache is reinitialized
2112 as on startup. Options are re-read from the configuration file.
2113 Instead of sending this signal it is better to use
2114 gpgconf --reload dirmngr
2117 Shuts down the process but waits until all current requests are
2118 fulfilled. If the process has received 3 of these signals and
2119 requests are still pending, a shutdown is forced. You may also use
2120 gpgconf --kill dirmngr
2121 instead of this signal
2124 Shuts down the process immediately.
2127 This prints some caching statistics to the log file.
2130 File: gnupg.info, Node: Dirmngr Examples, Next: Dirmngr Protocol, Prev: Dirmngr Signals, Up: Invoking DIRMNGR
2135 Here is an example on how to show dirmngr's internal table of OpenPGP
2136 keyserver addresses. The output is intended for debugging purposes and
2137 not part of a defined API.
2139 gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'keyserver --hosttable' /bye
2141 To inhibit the use of a particular host you have noticed in one of
2142 the keyserver pools, you may use
2144 gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'keyserver --dead pgpkeys.bnd.de' /bye
2146 The description of the 'keyserver' command can be printed using
2148 gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'help keyserver' /bye
2151 File: gnupg.info, Node: Dirmngr Protocol, Prev: Dirmngr Examples, Up: Invoking DIRMNGR
2153 3.6 Dirmngr's Assuan Protocol
2154 =============================
2156 Assuan is the IPC protocol used to access dirmngr. This is a
2157 description of the commands implemented by dirmngr.
2161 * Dirmngr LOOKUP:: Look up a certificate via LDAP
2162 * Dirmngr ISVALID:: Validate a certificate using a CRL or OCSP.
2163 * Dirmngr CHECKCRL:: Validate a certificate using a CRL.
2164 * Dirmngr CHECKOCSP:: Validate a certificate using OCSP.
2165 * Dirmngr CACHECERT:: Put a certificate into the internal cache.
2166 * Dirmngr VALIDATE:: Validate a certificate for debugging.
2169 File: gnupg.info, Node: Dirmngr LOOKUP, Next: Dirmngr ISVALID, Up: Dirmngr Protocol
2171 3.6.1 Return the certificate(s) found
2172 -------------------------------------
2174 Lookup certificate. To allow multiple patterns (which are ORed) quoting
2175 is required: Spaces are to be translated into "+" or into "%20";
2176 obviously this requires that the usual escape quoting rules are applied.
2177 The server responds with:
2179 S: D <DER encoded certificate>
2181 S: D <second DER encoded certificate>
2185 In this example 2 certificates are returned. The server may return
2186 any number of certificates; OK will also be returned when no
2187 certificates were found. The dirmngr might return a status line
2191 To indicate that the output was truncated to N items due to a
2192 limitation of the server or by an arbitrary set limit.
2194 The option '--url' may be used if instead of a search pattern a
2195 complete URL to the certificate is known:
2197 C: LOOKUP --url CN%3DWerner%20Koch,o%3DIntevation%20GmbH,c%3DDE?userCertificate
2199 If the option '--cache-only' is given, no external lookup is done so
2200 that only certificates from the cache are returned.
2202 With the option '--single', the first and only the first match will
2203 be returned. Unless option '--cache-only' is also used, no local lookup
2204 will be done in this case.
2207 File: gnupg.info, Node: Dirmngr ISVALID, Next: Dirmngr CHECKCRL, Prev: Dirmngr LOOKUP, Up: Dirmngr Protocol
2209 3.6.2 Validate a certificate using a CRL or OCSP
2210 ------------------------------------------------
2212 ISVALID [--only-ocsp] [--force-default-responder] CERTID|CERTFPR
2214 Check whether the certificate described by the CERTID has been
2215 revoked. Due to caching, the Dirmngr is able to answer immediately in
2218 The CERTID is a hex encoded string consisting of two parts, delimited
2219 by a single dot. The first part is the SHA-1 hash of the issuer name
2220 and the second part the serial number.
2222 Alternatively the certificate's SHA-1 fingerprint CERTFPR may be
2223 given in which case an OCSP request is done before consulting the CRL.
2224 If the option '--only-ocsp' is given, no fallback to a CRL check will be
2225 used. If the option '--force-default-responder' is given, only the
2226 default OCSP responder will be used and any other methods of obtaining
2227 an OCSP responder URL won't be used.
2229 Common return values are:
2231 'GPG_ERR_NO_ERROR (0)'
2232 This is the positive answer: The certificate is not revoked and we
2233 have an up-to-date revocation list for that certificate. If OCSP
2234 was used the responder confirmed that the certificate has not been
2237 'GPG_ERR_CERT_REVOKED'
2238 This is the negative answer: The certificate has been revoked.
2239 Either it is in a CRL and that list is up to date or an OCSP
2240 responder informed us that it has been revoked.
2242 'GPG_ERR_NO_CRL_KNOWN'
2243 No CRL is known for this certificate or the CRL is not valid or out
2247 The OCSP responder returned an "unknown" status. This means that
2248 it is not aware of the certificate's status.
2250 'GPG_ERR_NOT_SUPPORTED'
2251 This is commonly seen if OCSP support has not been enabled in the
2254 If DirMngr has not enough information about the given certificate
2255 (which is the case for not yet cached certificates), it will inquire the
2258 S: INQUIRE SENDCERT <CertID>
2259 C: D <DER encoded certificate>
2262 A client should be aware that DirMngr may ask for more than one
2265 If Dirmngr has a certificate but the signature of the certificate
2266 could not been validated because the root certificate is not known to
2267 dirmngr as trusted, it may ask back to see whether the client trusts
2268 this the root certificate:
2270 S: INQUIRE ISTRUSTED <CertHexfpr>
2274 Only this answer will let Dirmngr consider the certificate as valid.
2277 File: gnupg.info, Node: Dirmngr CHECKCRL, Next: Dirmngr CHECKOCSP, Prev: Dirmngr ISVALID, Up: Dirmngr Protocol
2279 3.6.3 Validate a certificate using a CRL
2280 ----------------------------------------
2282 Check whether the certificate with FINGERPRINT (SHA-1 hash of the entire
2283 X.509 certificate blob) is valid or not by consulting the CRL
2284 responsible for this certificate. If the fingerprint has not been given
2285 or the certificate is not known, the function inquires the certificate
2288 S: INQUIRE TARGETCERT
2289 C: D <DER encoded certificate>
2292 Thus the caller is expected to return the certificate for the request
2293 (which should match FINGERPRINT) as a binary blob. Processing then
2294 takes place without further interaction; in particular dirmngr tries to
2295 locate other required certificate by its own mechanism which includes a
2296 local certificate store as well as a list of trusted root certificates.
2298 The return code is 0 for success; i.e. the certificate has not been
2299 revoked or one of the usual error codes from libgpg-error.
2302 File: gnupg.info, Node: Dirmngr CHECKOCSP, Next: Dirmngr CACHECERT, Prev: Dirmngr CHECKCRL, Up: Dirmngr Protocol
2304 3.6.4 Validate a certificate using OCSP
2305 ---------------------------------------
2307 CHECKOCSP [--force-default-responder] [FINGERPRINT]
2309 Check whether the certificate with FINGERPRINT (the SHA-1 hash of the
2310 entire X.509 certificate blob) is valid by consulting the appropriate
2311 OCSP responder. If the fingerprint has not been given or the
2312 certificate is not known by Dirmngr, the function inquires the
2315 S: INQUIRE TARGETCERT
2316 C: D <DER encoded certificate>
2319 Thus the caller is expected to return the certificate for the request
2320 (which should match FINGERPRINT) as a binary blob. Processing then
2321 takes place without further interaction; in particular dirmngr tries to
2322 locate other required certificates by its own mechanism which includes a
2323 local certificate store as well as a list of trusted root certificates.
2325 If the option '--force-default-responder' is given, only the default
2326 OCSP responder is used. This option is the per-command variant of the
2327 global option '--ignore-ocsp-service-url'.
2329 The return code is 0 for success; i.e. the certificate has not been
2330 revoked or one of the usual error codes from libgpg-error.
2333 File: gnupg.info, Node: Dirmngr CACHECERT, Next: Dirmngr VALIDATE, Prev: Dirmngr CHECKOCSP, Up: Dirmngr Protocol
2335 3.6.5 Put a certificate into the internal cache
2336 -----------------------------------------------
2338 Put a certificate into the internal cache. This command might be useful
2339 if a client knows in advance certificates required for a test and wants
2340 to make sure they get added to the internal cache. It is also helpful
2341 for debugging. To get the actual certificate, this command immediately
2344 S: INQUIRE TARGETCERT
2345 C: D <DER encoded certificate>
2348 Thus the caller is expected to return the certificate for the request
2351 The return code is 0 for success; i.e. the certificate has not been
2352 successfully cached or one of the usual error codes from libgpg-error.
2355 File: gnupg.info, Node: Dirmngr VALIDATE, Prev: Dirmngr CACHECERT, Up: Dirmngr Protocol
2357 3.6.6 Validate a certificate for debugging
2358 ------------------------------------------
2360 Validate a certificate using the certificate validation function used
2361 internally by dirmngr. This command is only useful for debugging. To
2362 get the actual certificate, this command immediately inquires it using
2364 S: INQUIRE TARGETCERT
2365 C: D <DER encoded certificate>
2368 Thus the caller is expected to return the certificate for the request
2372 File: gnupg.info, Node: Invoking GPG, Next: Invoking GPGSM, Prev: Invoking DIRMNGR, Up: Top
2377 'gpg' is the OpenPGP part of the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG). It is a tool
2378 to provide digital encryption and signing services using the OpenPGP
2379 standard. 'gpg' features complete key management and all the bells and
2380 whistles you would expect from a full OpenPGP implementation.
2382 There are two main versions of GnuPG: GnuPG 1.x and GnuPG 2.x. GnuPG
2383 2.x supports modern encryption algorithms and thus should be preferred
2384 over GnuPG 1.x. You only need to use GnuPG 1.x if your platform doesn't
2385 support GnuPG 2.x, or you need support for some features that GnuPG 2.x
2386 has deprecated, e.g., decrypting data created with PGP-2 keys.
2388 If you are looking for version 1 of GnuPG, you may find that version
2389 installed under the name 'gpg1'.
2391 *Note Option Index::, for an index to 'gpg''s commands and options.
2395 * GPG Commands:: List of all commands.
2396 * GPG Options:: List of all options.
2397 * GPG Configuration:: Configuration files.
2398 * GPG Examples:: Some usage examples.
2400 Developer information:
2401 * Unattended Usage of GPG:: Using 'gpg' from other programs.
2404 File: gnupg.info, Node: GPG Commands, Next: GPG Options, Up: Invoking GPG
2409 Commands are not distinguished from options except for the fact that
2410 only one command is allowed. Generally speaking, irrelevant options are
2411 silently ignored, and may not be checked for correctness.
2413 'gpg' may be run with no commands. In this case it will print a
2414 warning perform a reasonable action depending on the type of file it is
2415 given as input (an encrypted message is decrypted, a signature is
2416 verified, a file containing keys is listed, etc.).
2418 If you run into any problems, please add the option '--verbose' to
2419 the invocation to see more diagnostics.
2423 * General GPG Commands:: Commands not specific to the functionality.
2424 * Operational GPG Commands:: Commands to select the type of operation.
2425 * OpenPGP Key Management:: How to manage your keys.
2428 File: gnupg.info, Node: General GPG Commands, Next: Operational GPG Commands, Up: GPG Commands
2430 4.1.1 Commands not specific to the function
2431 -------------------------------------------
2434 Print the program version and licensing information. Note that you
2435 cannot abbreviate this command.
2439 Print a usage message summarizing the most useful command-line
2440 options. Note that you cannot arbitrarily abbreviate this command
2441 (though you can use its short form '-h').
2444 Print warranty information.
2447 Print a list of all available options and commands. Note that you
2448 cannot abbreviate this command.
2451 File: gnupg.info, Node: Operational GPG Commands, Next: OpenPGP Key Management, Prev: General GPG Commands, Up: GPG Commands
2453 4.1.2 Commands to select the type of operation
2454 ----------------------------------------------
2458 Sign a message. This command may be combined with '--encrypt' (to
2459 sign and encrypt a message), '--symmetric' (to sign and
2460 symmetrically encrypt a message), or both '--encrypt' and
2461 '--symmetric' (to sign and encrypt a message that can be decrypted
2462 using a secret key or a passphrase). The signing key is chosen by
2463 default or can be set explicitly using the '--local-user' and
2464 '--default-key' options.
2468 Make a cleartext signature. The content in a cleartext signature
2469 is readable without any special software. OpenPGP software is only
2470 needed to verify the signature. cleartext signatures may modify
2471 end-of-line whitespace for platform independence and are not
2472 intended to be reversible. The signing key is chosen by default or
2473 can be set explicitly using the '--local-user' and '--default-key'
2478 Make a detached signature.
2482 Encrypt data to one or more public keys. This command may be
2483 combined with '--sign' (to sign and encrypt a message),
2484 '--symmetric' (to encrypt a message that can be decrypted using a
2485 secret key or a passphrase), or '--sign' and '--symmetric' together
2486 (for a signed message that can be decrypted using a secret key or a
2487 passphrase). '--recipient' and related options specify which
2488 public keys to use for encryption.
2492 Encrypt with a symmetric cipher using a passphrase. The default
2493 symmetric cipher used is AES-128, but may be chosen with the
2494 '--cipher-algo' option. This command may be combined with '--sign'
2495 (for a signed and symmetrically encrypted message), '--encrypt'
2496 (for a message that may be decrypted via a secret key or a
2497 passphrase), or '--sign' and '--encrypt' together (for a signed
2498 message that may be decrypted via a secret key or a passphrase).
2499 'gpg' caches the passphrase used for symmetric encryption so that a
2500 decrypt operation may not require that the user needs to enter the
2501 passphrase. The option '--no-symkey-cache' can be used to disable
2505 Store only (make a simple literal data packet).
2509 Decrypt the file given on the command line (or STDIN if no file is
2510 specified) and write it to STDOUT (or the file specified with
2511 '--output'). If the decrypted file is signed, the signature is
2512 also verified. This command differs from the default operation, as
2513 it never writes to the filename which is included in the file and
2514 it rejects files that don't begin with an encrypted message.
2517 Assume that the first argument is a signed file and verify it
2518 without generating any output. With no arguments, the signature
2519 packet is read from STDIN. If only one argument is given, the
2520 specified file is expected to include a complete signature.
2522 With more than one argument, the first argument should specify a
2523 file with a detached signature and the remaining files should
2524 contain the signed data. To read the signed data from STDIN, use
2525 '-' as the second filename. For security reasons, a detached
2526 signature will not read the signed material from STDIN if not
2527 explicitly specified.
2529 Note: If the option '--batch' is not used, 'gpg' may assume that a
2530 single argument is a file with a detached signature, and it will
2531 try to find a matching data file by stripping certain suffixes.
2532 Using this historical feature to verify a detached signature is
2533 strongly discouraged; you should always specify the data file
2536 Note: When verifying a cleartext signature, 'gpg' verifies only
2537 what makes up the cleartext signed data and not any extra data
2538 outside of the cleartext signature or the header lines directly
2539 following the dash marker line. The option '--output' may be used
2540 to write out the actual signed data, but there are other pitfalls
2541 with this format as well. It is suggested to avoid cleartext
2542 signatures in favor of detached signatures.
2544 Note: Sometimes the use of the 'gpgv' tool is easier than using the
2545 full-fledged 'gpg' with this option. 'gpgv' is designed to compare
2546 signed data against a list of trusted keys and returns with success
2547 only for a good signature. It has its own manual page.
2550 This modifies certain other commands to accept multiple files for
2551 processing on the command line or read from STDIN with each
2552 filename on a separate line. This allows for many files to be
2553 processed at once. '--multifile' may currently be used along with
2554 '--verify', '--encrypt', and '--decrypt'. Note that '--multifile
2555 --verify' may not be used with detached signatures.
2558 Identical to '--multifile --verify'.
2561 Identical to '--multifile --encrypt'.
2564 Identical to '--multifile --decrypt'.
2568 '--list-public-keys'
2569 List the specified keys. If no keys are specified, then all keys
2570 from the configured public keyrings are listed.
2572 Never use the output of this command in scripts or other programs.
2573 The output is intended only for humans and its format is likely to
2574 change. The '--with-colons' option emits the output in a stable,
2575 machine-parseable format, which is intended for use by scripts and
2578 '--list-secret-keys'
2580 List the specified secret keys. If no keys are specified, then all
2581 known secret keys are listed. A '#' after the initial tags 'sec'
2582 or 'ssb' means that the secret key or subkey is currently not
2583 usable. We also say that this key has been taken offline (for
2584 example, a primary key can be taken offline by exporting the key
2585 using the command '--export-secret-subkeys'). A '>' after these
2586 tags indicate that the key is stored on a smartcard. See also
2589 '--check-signatures'
2591 Same as '--list-keys', but the key signatures are verified and
2592 listed too. Note that for performance reasons the revocation
2593 status of a signing key is not shown. This command has the same
2594 effect as using '--list-keys' with '--with-sig-check'.
2596 The status of the verification is indicated by a flag directly
2597 following the "sig" tag (and thus before the flags described below.
2598 A "!" indicates that the signature has been successfully verified,
2599 a "-" denotes a bad signature and a "%" is used if an error
2600 occurred while checking the signature (e.g. a non supported
2601 algorithm). Signatures where the public key is not available are
2602 not listed; to see their keyids the command '--list-sigs' can be
2605 For each signature listed, there are several flags in between the
2606 signature status flag and keyid. These flags give additional
2607 information about each key signature. From left to right, they are
2608 the numbers 1-3 for certificate check level (see
2609 '--ask-cert-level'), "L" for a local or non-exportable signature
2610 (see '--lsign-key'), "R" for a nonRevocable signature (see the
2611 '--edit-key' command "nrsign"), "P" for a signature that contains a
2612 policy URL (see '--cert-policy-url'), "N" for a signature that
2613 contains a notation (see '--cert-notation'), "X" for an eXpired
2614 signature (see '--ask-cert-expire'), and the numbers 1-9 or "T" for
2615 10 and above to indicate trust signature levels (see the
2616 '--edit-key' command "tsign").
2619 '--locate-external-keys'
2620 Locate the keys given as arguments. This command basically uses
2621 the same algorithm as used when locating keys for encryption and
2622 may thus be used to see what keys 'gpg' might use. In particular
2623 external methods as defined by '--auto-key-locate' are used to
2624 locate a key if the arguments comain valid mail addresses. Only
2625 public keys are listed.
2627 The variant '--locate-external-keys' does not consider a locally
2628 existing key and can thus be used to force the refresh of a key via
2629 the defined external methods. If a fingerprint is given and and
2630 the methods defined by -auto-key-locate define LDAP servers, the
2631 key is fetched from these resources; defined non-LDAP keyservers
2635 This commands takes OpenPGP keys as input and prints information
2636 about them in the same way the command '--list-keys' does for
2637 locally stored key. In addition the list options
2638 'show-unusable-uids', 'show-unusable-subkeys', 'show-notations' and
2639 'show-policy-urls' are also enabled. As usual for automated
2640 processing, this command should be combined with the option
2644 List all keys (or the specified ones) along with their
2645 fingerprints. This is the same output as '--list-keys' but with
2646 the additional output of a line with the fingerprint. May also be
2647 combined with '--check-signatures'. If this command is given
2648 twice, the fingerprints of all secondary keys are listed too. This
2649 command also forces pretty printing of fingerprints if the keyid
2650 format has been set to "none".
2653 List only the sequence of packets. This command is only useful for
2654 debugging. When used with option '--verbose' the actual MPI values
2655 are dumped and not only their lengths. Note that the output of
2656 this command may change with new releases.
2660 Present a menu to work with a smartcard. The subcommand "help"
2661 provides an overview on available commands. For a detailed
2662 description, please see the Card HOWTO at
2663 https://gnupg.org/documentation/howtos.html#GnuPG-cardHOWTO .
2666 Show the content of the smart card.
2669 Present a menu to allow changing the PIN of a smartcard. This
2670 functionality is also available as the subcommand "passwd" with the
2671 '--edit-card' command.
2673 '--delete-keys NAME'
2674 Remove key from the public keyring. In batch mode either '--yes'
2675 is required or the key must be specified by fingerprint. This is a
2676 safeguard against accidental deletion of multiple keys. If the
2677 exclamation mark syntax is used with the fingerprint of a subkey
2678 only that subkey is deleted; if the exclamation mark is used with
2679 the fingerprint of the primary key the entire public key is
2682 '--delete-secret-keys NAME'
2683 Remove key from the secret keyring. In batch mode the key must be
2684 specified by fingerprint. The option '--yes' can be used to advise
2685 gpg-agent not to request a confirmation. This extra pre-caution is
2686 done because 'gpg' can't be sure that the secret key (as controlled
2687 by gpg-agent) is only used for the given OpenPGP public key. If
2688 the exclamation mark syntax is used with the fingerprint of a
2689 subkey only the secret part of that subkey is deleted; if the
2690 exclamation mark is used with the fingerprint of the primary key
2691 only the secret part of the primary key is deleted.
2693 '--delete-secret-and-public-key NAME'
2694 Same as '--delete-key', but if a secret key exists, it will be
2695 removed first. In batch mode the key must be specified by
2696 fingerprint. The option '--yes' can be used to advise gpg-agent
2697 not to request a confirmation.
2700 Either export all keys from all keyrings (default keyring and those
2701 registered via option '--keyring'), or if at least one name is
2702 given, those of the given name. The exported keys are written to
2703 STDOUT or to the file given with option '--output'. Use together
2704 with '--armor' to mail those keys.
2706 '--send-keys KEYIDS'
2707 Similar to '--export' but sends the keys to a keyserver.
2708 Fingerprints may be used instead of key IDs. Don't send your
2709 complete keyring to a keyserver -- select only those keys which are
2710 new or changed by you. If no KEYIDS are given, 'gpg' does nothing.
2712 Take care: Keyservers are by design write only systems and thus it
2713 is not possible to ever delete keys once they have been send to a
2716 '--export-secret-keys'
2717 '--export-secret-subkeys'
2718 Same as '--export', but exports the secret keys instead. The
2719 exported keys are written to STDOUT or to the file given with
2720 option '--output'. This command is often used along with the
2721 option '--armor' to allow for easy printing of the key for paper
2722 backup; however the external tool 'paperkey' does a better job of
2723 creating backups on paper. Note that exporting a secret key can be
2724 a security risk if the exported keys are sent over an insecure
2727 The second form of the command has the special property to render
2728 the secret part of the primary key useless; this is a GNU extension
2729 to OpenPGP and other implementations can not be expected to
2730 successfully import such a key. Its intended use is in generating
2731 a full key with an additional signing subkey on a dedicated
2732 machine. This command then exports the key without the primary key
2733 to the main machine.
2735 GnuPG may ask you to enter the passphrase for the key. This is
2736 required, because the internal protection method of the secret key
2737 is different from the one specified by the OpenPGP protocol.
2740 This command is used to export a key in the OpenSSH public key
2741 format. It requires the specification of one key by the usual
2742 means and exports the latest valid subkey which has an
2743 authentication capability to STDOUT or to the file given with
2744 option '--output'. That output can directly be added to ssh's
2745 'authorized_key' file.
2747 By specifying the key to export using a key ID or a fingerprint
2748 suffixed with an exclamation mark (!), a specific subkey or the
2749 primary key can be exported. This does not even require that the
2750 key has the authentication capability flag set.
2754 Import/merge keys. This adds the given keys to the keyring. The
2755 fast version is currently just a synonym.
2757 There are a few other options which control how this command works.
2758 Most notable here is the '--import-options merge-only' option which
2759 does not insert new keys but does only the merging of new
2760 signatures, user-IDs and subkeys.
2762 '--receive-keys KEYIDS'
2763 '--recv-keys KEYIDS'
2764 Import the keys with the given KEYIDS from a keyserver.
2767 Request updates from a keyserver for keys that already exist on the
2768 local keyring. This is useful for updating a key with the latest
2769 signatures, user IDs, etc. Calling this with no arguments will
2770 refresh the entire keyring.
2772 '--search-keys NAMES'
2773 Search the keyserver for the given NAMES. Multiple names given
2774 here will be joined together to create the search string for the
2775 keyserver. Note that keyservers search for NAMES in a different
2776 and simpler way than gpg does. The best choice is to use a mail
2777 address. Due to data privacy reasons keyservers may even not even
2778 allow searching by user id or mail address and thus may only return
2779 results when being used with the '--recv-key' command to search by
2780 key fingerprint or keyid.
2783 Retrieve keys located at the specified URIS. Note that different
2784 installations of GnuPG may support different protocols (HTTP, FTP,
2785 LDAP, etc.). When using HTTPS the system provided root
2786 certificates are used by this command.
2789 Do trust database maintenance. This command iterates over all keys
2790 and builds the Web of Trust. This is an interactive command
2791 because it may have to ask for the "ownertrust" values for keys.
2792 The user has to give an estimation of how far she trusts the owner
2793 of the displayed key to correctly certify (sign) other keys. GnuPG
2794 only asks for the ownertrust value if it has not yet been assigned
2795 to a key. Using the '--edit-key' menu, the assigned value can be
2796 changed at any time.
2799 Do trust database maintenance without user interaction. From time
2800 to time the trust database must be updated so that expired keys or
2801 signatures and the resulting changes in the Web of Trust can be
2802 tracked. Normally, GnuPG will calculate when this is required and
2803 do it automatically unless '--no-auto-check-trustdb' is set. This
2804 command can be used to force a trust database check at any time.
2805 The processing is identical to that of '--update-trustdb' but it
2806 skips keys with a not yet defined "ownertrust".
2808 For use with cron jobs, this command can be used together with
2809 '--batch' in which case the trust database check is done only if a
2810 check is needed. To force a run even in batch mode add the option
2813 '--export-ownertrust'
2814 Send the ownertrust values to STDOUT. This is useful for backup
2815 purposes as these values are the only ones which can't be
2816 re-created from a corrupted trustdb. Example:
2817 gpg --export-ownertrust > otrust.txt
2819 '--import-ownertrust'
2820 Update the trustdb with the ownertrust values stored in 'files' (or
2821 STDIN if not given); existing values will be overwritten. In case
2822 of a severely damaged trustdb and if you have a recent backup of
2823 the ownertrust values (e.g. in the file 'otrust.txt'), you may
2824 re-create the trustdb using these commands:
2827 gpg --import-ownertrust < otrust.txt
2829 '--rebuild-keydb-caches'
2830 When updating from version 1.0.6 to 1.0.7 this command should be
2831 used to create signature caches in the keyring. It might be handy
2832 in other situations too.
2836 Print message digest of algorithm ALGO for all given files or
2837 STDIN. With the second form (or a deprecated "*" for ALGO) digests
2838 for all available algorithms are printed.
2840 '--gen-random 0|1|2 COUNT'
2841 Emit COUNT random bytes of the given quality level 0, 1 or 2. If
2842 COUNT is not given or zero, an endless sequence of random bytes
2843 will be emitted. If used with '--armor' the output will be base64
2844 encoded. PLEASE, don't use this command unless you know what you
2845 are doing; it may remove precious entropy from the system!
2847 '--gen-prime MODE BITS'
2848 Use the source, Luke :-). The output format is subject to change
2853 Pack or unpack an arbitrary input into/from an OpenPGP ASCII armor.
2854 This is a GnuPG extension to OpenPGP and in general not very
2857 '--tofu-policy {auto|good|unknown|bad|ask} KEYS'
2858 Set the TOFU policy for all the bindings associated with the
2859 specified KEYS. For more information about the meaning of the
2860 policies, *note trust-model-tofu::. The KEYS may be specified
2861 either by their fingerprint (preferred) or their keyid.
2864 File: gnupg.info, Node: OpenPGP Key Management, Prev: Operational GPG Commands, Up: GPG Commands
2866 4.1.3 How to manage your keys
2867 -----------------------------
2869 This section explains the main commands for key management.
2871 '--quick-generate-key USER-ID [ALGO [USAGE [EXPIRE]]]'
2873 This is a simple command to generate a standard key with one user
2874 id. In contrast to '--generate-key' the key is generated directly
2875 without the need to answer a bunch of prompts. Unless the option
2876 '--yes' is given, the key creation will be canceled if the given
2877 user id already exists in the keyring.
2879 If invoked directly on the console without any special options an
2880 answer to a "Continue?" style confirmation prompt is required. In
2881 case the user id already exists in the keyring a second prompt to
2882 force the creation of the key will show up.
2884 If ALGO or USAGE are given, only the primary key is created and no
2885 prompts are shown. To specify an expiration date but still create
2886 a primary and subkey use "default" or "future-default" for ALGO and
2887 "default" for USAGE. For a description of these optional arguments
2888 see the command '--quick-add-key'. The USAGE accepts also the
2889 value "cert" which can be used to create a certification only
2890 primary key; the default is to a create certification and signing
2893 The EXPIRE argument can be used to specify an expiration date for
2894 the key. Several formats are supported; commonly the ISO formats
2895 "YYYY-MM-DD" or "YYYYMMDDThhmmss" are used. To make the key expire
2896 in N seconds, N days, N weeks, N months, or N years use
2897 "seconds=N", "Nd", "Nw", "Nm", or "Ny" respectively. Not
2898 specifying a value, or using "-" results in a key expiring in a
2899 reasonable default interval. The values "never", "none" can be
2900 used for no expiration date.
2902 If this command is used with '--batch', '--pinentry-mode' has been
2903 set to 'loopback', and one of the passphrase options
2904 ('--passphrase', '--passphrase-fd', or '--passphrase-file') is
2905 used, the supplied passphrase is used for the new key and the agent
2906 does not ask for it. To create a key without any protection
2907 '--passphrase ''' may be used.
2909 To create an OpenPGP key from the keys available on the currently
2910 inserted smartcard, the special string "card" can be used for ALGO.
2911 If the card features an encryption and a signing key, gpg will
2912 figure them out and creates an OpenPGP key consisting of the usual
2913 primary key and one subkey. This works only with certain
2914 smartcards. Note that the interactive '--full-gen-key' command
2915 allows to do the same but with greater flexibility in the selection
2916 of the smartcard keys.
2918 Note that it is possible to create a primary key and a subkey using
2919 non-default algorithms by using "default" and changing the default
2920 parameters using the option '--default-new-key-algo'.
2922 '--quick-set-expire FPR EXPIRE [*|SUBFPRS]'
2923 With two arguments given, directly set the expiration time of the
2924 primary key identified by FPR to EXPIRE. To remove the expiration
2925 time '0' can be used. With three arguments and the third given as
2926 an asterisk, the expiration time of all non-revoked and not yet
2927 expired subkeys are set to EXPIRE. With more than two arguments
2928 and a list of fingerprints given for SUBFPRS, all non-revoked
2929 subkeys matching these fingerprints are set to EXPIRE.
2931 '--quick-add-key FPR [ALGO [USAGE [EXPIRE]]]'
2932 Directly add a subkey to the key identified by the fingerprint FPR.
2933 Without the optional arguments an encryption subkey is added. If
2934 any of the arguments are given a more specific subkey is added.
2936 ALGO may be any of the supported algorithms or curve names given in
2937 the format as used by key listings. To use the default algorithm
2938 the string "default" or "-" can be used. Supported algorithms are
2939 "rsa", "dsa", "elg", "ed25519", "cv25519", and other ECC curves.
2940 For example the string "rsa" adds an RSA key with the default key
2941 length; a string "rsa4096" requests that the key length is 4096
2942 bits. The string "future-default" is an alias for the algorithm
2943 which will likely be used as default algorithm in future versions
2944 of gpg. To list the supported ECC curves the command 'gpg
2945 --with-colons --list-config curve' can be used.
2947 Depending on the given ALGO the subkey may either be an encryption
2948 subkey or a signing subkey. If an algorithm is capable of signing
2949 and encryption and such a subkey is desired, a USAGE string must be
2950 given. This string is either "default" or "-" to keep the default
2951 or a comma delimited list (or space delimited list) of keywords:
2952 "sign" for a signing subkey, "auth" for an authentication subkey,
2953 and "encr" for an encryption subkey ("encrypt" can be used as alias
2954 for "encr"). The valid combinations depend on the algorithm.
2956 The EXPIRE argument can be used to specify an expiration date for
2957 the key. Several formats are supported; commonly the ISO formats
2958 "YYYY-MM-DD" or "YYYYMMDDThhmmss" are used. To make the key expire
2959 in N seconds, N days, N weeks, N months, or N years use
2960 "seconds=N", "Nd", "Nw", "Nm", or "Ny" respectively. Not
2961 specifying a value, or using "-" results in a key expiring in a
2962 reasonable default interval. The values "never", "none" can be
2963 used for no expiration date.
2967 Generate a new key pair using the current default parameters. This
2968 is the standard command to create a new key. In addition to the
2969 key a revocation certificate is created and stored in the
2970 'openpgp-revocs.d' directory below the GnuPG home directory.
2972 '--full-generate-key'
2974 Generate a new key pair with dialogs for all options. This is an
2975 extended version of '--generate-key'.
2977 There is also a feature which allows you to create keys in batch
2978 mode. See the manual section "Unattended key generation" on how to
2981 '--generate-revocation NAME'
2983 Generate a revocation certificate for the complete key. To only
2984 revoke a subkey or a key signature, use the '--edit' command.
2986 This command merely creates the revocation certificate so that it
2987 can be used to revoke the key if that is ever needed. To actually
2988 revoke a key the created revocation certificate needs to be merged
2989 with the key to revoke. This is done by importing the revocation
2990 certificate using the '--import' command. Then the revoked key
2991 needs to be published, which is best done by sending the key to a
2992 keyserver (command '--send-key') and by exporting ('--export') it
2993 to a file which is then send to frequent communication partners.
2995 '--generate-designated-revocation NAME'
2996 '--desig-revoke NAME'
2997 Generate a designated revocation certificate for a key. This
2998 allows a user (with the permission of the keyholder) to revoke
3002 Present a menu which enables you to do most of the key management
3003 related tasks. It expects the specification of a key on the
3007 Toggle selection of user ID or photographic user ID with index
3008 N. Use '*' to select all and '0' to deselect all.
3011 Toggle selection of subkey with index N or key ID N. Use '*'
3012 to select all and '0' to deselect all.
3015 Make a signature on key of user 'name'. If the key is not yet
3016 signed by the default user (or the users given with '-u'), the
3017 program displays the information of the key again, together
3018 with its fingerprint and asks whether it should be signed.
3019 This question is repeated for all users specified with '-u'.
3022 Same as "sign" but the signature is marked as non-exportable
3023 and will therefore never be used by others. This may be used
3024 to make keys valid only in the local environment.
3027 Same as "sign" but the signature is marked as non-revocable
3028 and can therefore never be revoked.
3031 Make a trust signature. This is a signature that combines the
3032 notions of certification (like a regular signature), and trust
3033 (like the "trust" command). It is generally only useful in
3034 distinct communities or groups. For more information please
3035 read the sections "Trust Signature" and "Regular Expression"
3038 Note that "l" (for local / non-exportable), "nr" (for
3039 non-revocable, and "t" (for trust) may be freely mixed and prefixed
3040 to "sign" to create a signature of any type desired.
3042 If the option '--only-sign-text-ids' is specified, then any
3043 non-text based user ids (e.g., photo IDs) will not be selected for
3047 Delete a signature. Note that it is not possible to retract a
3048 signature, once it has been send to the public (i.e. to a
3049 keyserver). In that case you better use 'revsig'.
3052 Revoke a signature. For every signature which has been
3053 generated by one of the secret keys, GnuPG asks whether a
3054 revocation certificate should be generated.
3057 Check the signatures on all selected user IDs. With the extra
3058 option 'selfsig' only self-signatures are shown.
3061 Create an additional user ID.
3064 Create a photographic user ID. This will prompt for a JPEG
3065 file that will be embedded into the user ID. Note that a very
3066 large JPEG will make for a very large key. Also note that
3067 some programs will display your JPEG unchanged (GnuPG), and
3068 some programs will scale it to fit in a dialog box (PGP).
3071 Display the selected photographic user ID.
3074 Delete a user ID or photographic user ID. Note that it is not
3075 possible to retract a user id, once it has been send to the
3076 public (i.e. to a keyserver). In that case you better use
3080 Revoke a user ID or photographic user ID.
3083 Flag the current user id as the primary one, removes the
3084 primary user id flag from all other user ids and sets the
3085 timestamp of all affected self-signatures one second ahead.
3086 Note that setting a photo user ID as primary makes it primary
3087 over other photo user IDs, and setting a regular user ID as
3088 primary makes it primary over other regular user IDs.
3091 Set a preferred keyserver for the specified user ID(s). This
3092 allows other users to know where you prefer they get your key
3093 from. See '--keyserver-options honor-keyserver-url' for more
3094 on how this works. Setting a value of "none" removes an
3095 existing preferred keyserver.
3098 Set a name=value notation for the specified user ID(s). See
3099 '--cert-notation' for more on how this works. Setting a value
3100 of "none" removes all notations, setting a notation prefixed
3101 with a minus sign (-) removes that notation, and setting a
3102 notation name (without the =value) prefixed with a minus sign
3103 removes all notations with that name.
3106 List preferences from the selected user ID. This shows the
3107 actual preferences, without including any implied preferences.
3110 More verbose preferences listing for the selected user ID.
3111 This shows the preferences in effect by including the implied
3112 preferences of 3DES (cipher), SHA-1 (digest), and Uncompressed
3113 (compression) if they are not already included in the
3114 preference list. In addition, the preferred keyserver and
3115 signature notations (if any) are shown.
3118 Set the list of user ID preferences to STRING for all (or just
3119 the selected) user IDs. Calling setpref with no arguments
3120 sets the preference list to the default (either built-in or
3121 set via '--default-preference-list'), and calling setpref with
3122 "none" as the argument sets an empty preference list. Use
3123 'gpg --version' to get a list of available algorithms. Note
3124 that while you can change the preferences on an attribute user
3125 ID (aka "photo ID"), GnuPG does not select keys via attribute
3126 user IDs so these preferences will not be used by GnuPG.
3128 When setting preferences, you should list the algorithms in
3129 the order which you'd like to see them used by someone else
3130 when encrypting a message to your key. If you don't include
3131 3DES, it will be automatically added at the end. Note that
3132 there are many factors that go into choosing an algorithm (for
3133 example, your key may not be the only recipient), and so the
3134 remote OpenPGP application being used to send to you may or
3135 may not follow your exact chosen order for a given message.
3136 It will, however, only choose an algorithm that is present on
3137 the preference list of every recipient key. See also the
3138 INTEROPERABILITY WITH OTHER OPENPGP PROGRAMS section below.
3141 Add a subkey to this key.
3144 Generate a subkey on a card and add it to this key.
3147 Transfer the selected secret subkey (or the primary key if no
3148 subkey has been selected) to a smartcard. The secret key in
3149 the keyring will be replaced by a stub if the key could be
3150 stored successfully on the card and you use the save command
3151 later. Only certain key types may be transferred to the card.
3152 A sub menu allows you to select on what card to store the key.
3153 Note that it is not possible to get that key back from the
3154 card - if the card gets broken your secret key will be lost
3155 unless you have a backup somewhere.
3158 Restore the given FILE to a card. This command may be used to
3159 restore a backup key (as generated during card initialization)
3160 to a new card. In almost all cases this will be the
3161 encryption key. You should use this command only with the
3162 corresponding public key and make sure that the file given as
3163 argument is indeed the backup to restore. You should then
3164 select 2 to restore as encryption key. You will first be
3165 asked to enter the passphrase of the backup key and then for
3166 the Admin PIN of the card.
3169 Remove a subkey (secondary key). Note that it is not possible
3170 to retract a subkey, once it has been send to the public (i.e.
3171 to a keyserver). In that case you better use 'revkey'. Also
3172 note that this only deletes the public part of a key.
3178 Change the key or subkey expiration time. If a subkey is
3179 selected, the expiration time of this subkey will be changed.
3180 With no selection, the key expiration of the primary key is
3184 Change the owner trust value for the key. This updates the
3185 trust-db immediately and no save is required.
3189 Disable or enable an entire key. A disabled key can not
3190 normally be used for encryption.
3193 Add a designated revoker to the key. This takes one optional
3194 argument: "sensitive". If a designated revoker is marked as
3195 sensitive, it will not be exported by default (see
3199 Change the passphrase of the secret key.
3202 This is dummy command which exists only for backward
3206 Compact (by removing all signatures except the selfsig) any
3207 user ID that is no longer usable (e.g. revoked, or expired).
3208 Then, remove any signatures that are not usable by the trust
3209 calculations. Specifically, this removes any signature that
3210 does not validate, any signature that is superseded by a later
3211 signature, revoked signatures, and signatures issued by keys
3212 that are not present on the keyring.
3215 Make the key as small as possible. This removes all
3216 signatures from each user ID except for the most recent
3220 Change the usage flags (capabilities) of the primary key or of
3221 subkeys. These usage flags (e.g. Certify, Sign,
3222 Authenticate, Encrypt) are set during key creation. Sometimes
3223 it is useful to have the opportunity to change them (for
3224 example to add Authenticate) after they have been created.
3225 Please take care when doing this; the allowed usage flags
3226 depend on the key algorithm.
3229 Add cross-certification signatures to signing subkeys that may
3230 not currently have them. Cross-certification signatures
3231 protect against a subtle attack against signing subkeys. See
3232 '--require-cross-certification'. All new keys generated have
3233 this signature by default, so this command is only useful to
3234 bring older keys up to date.
3237 Save all changes to the keyring and quit.
3240 Quit the program without updating the keyring.
3242 The listing shows you the key with its secondary keys and all user
3243 IDs. The primary user ID is indicated by a dot, and selected keys
3244 or user IDs are indicated by an asterisk. The trust value is
3245 displayed with the primary key: "trust" is the assigned owner trust
3246 and "validity" is the calculated validity of the key. Validity
3247 values are also displayed for all user IDs. For possible values of
3248 trust, *note trust-values::.
3251 Signs a public key with your secret key. This is a shortcut
3252 version of the subcommand "sign" from '--edit'.
3255 Signs a public key with your secret key but marks it as
3256 non-exportable. This is a shortcut version of the subcommand
3257 "lsign" from '--edit-key'.
3259 '--quick-sign-key FPR [NAMES]'
3260 '--quick-lsign-key FPR [NAMES]'
3261 Directly sign a key from the passphrase without any further user
3262 interaction. The FPR must be the verified primary fingerprint of a
3263 key in the local keyring. If no NAMES are given, all useful user
3264 ids are signed; with given [NAMES] only useful user ids matching
3265 one of theses names are signed. By default, or if a name is
3266 prefixed with a '*', a case insensitive substring match is used.
3267 If a name is prefixed with a '=' a case sensitive exact match is
3270 The command '--quick-lsign-key' marks the signatures as
3271 non-exportable. If such a non-exportable signature already exists
3272 the '--quick-sign-key' turns it into a exportable signature. If
3273 you need to update an existing signature, for example to add or
3274 change notation data, you need to use the option
3277 This command uses reasonable defaults and thus does not provide the
3278 full flexibility of the "sign" subcommand from '--edit-key'. Its
3279 intended use is to help unattended key signing by utilizing a list
3280 of verified fingerprints.
3282 '--quick-add-uid USER-ID NEW-USER-ID'
3283 This command adds a new user id to an existing key. In contrast to
3284 the interactive sub-command 'adduid' of '--edit-key' the
3285 NEW-USER-ID is added verbatim with only leading and trailing white
3286 space removed, it is expected to be UTF-8 encoded, and no checks on
3287 its form are applied.
3289 '--quick-revoke-uid USER-ID USER-ID-TO-REVOKE'
3290 This command revokes a user ID on an existing key. It cannot be
3291 used to revoke the last user ID on key (some non-revoked user ID
3292 must remain), with revocation reason "User ID is no longer valid".
3293 If you want to specify a different revocation reason, or to supply
3294 supplementary revocation text, you should use the interactive
3295 sub-command 'revuid' of '--edit-key'.
3297 '--quick-revoke-sig FPR SIGNING-FPR [NAMES]'
3298 This command revokes the key signatures made by SIGNING-FPR from
3299 the key specified by the fingerprint FPR. With NAMES given only
3300 the signatures on user ids of the key matching any of the given
3301 names are affected (see '--quick-sign-key'). If a revocation
3302 already exists a notice is printed instead of creating a new
3303 revocation; no error is returned in this case. Note that key
3304 signature revocations may be superseded by a newer key signature
3305 and in turn again revoked.
3307 '--quick-set-primary-uid USER-ID PRIMARY-USER-ID'
3308 This command sets or updates the primary user ID flag on an
3309 existing key. USER-ID specifies the key and PRIMARY-USER-ID the
3310 user ID which shall be flagged as the primary user ID. The primary
3311 user ID flag is removed from all other user ids and the timestamp
3312 of all affected self-signatures is set one second ahead.
3314 '--change-passphrase USER-ID'
3316 Change the passphrase of the secret key belonging to the
3317 certificate specified as USER-ID. This is a shortcut for the
3318 sub-command 'passwd' of the edit key menu. When using together
3319 with the option '--dry-run' this will not actually change the
3320 passphrase but check that the current passphrase is correct.
3323 File: gnupg.info, Node: GPG Options, Next: GPG Configuration, Prev: GPG Commands, Up: Invoking GPG
3328 'gpg' features a bunch of options to control the exact behaviour and to
3329 change the default configuration.
3333 * GPG Configuration Options:: How to change the configuration.
3334 * GPG Key related Options:: Key related options.
3335 * GPG Input and Output:: Input and Output.
3336 * OpenPGP Options:: OpenPGP protocol specific options.
3337 * Compliance Options:: Compliance options.
3338 * GPG Esoteric Options:: Doing things one usually doesn't want to do.
3339 * Deprecated Options:: Deprecated options.
3341 Long options can be put in an options file (default
3342 "~/.gnupg/gpg.conf"). Short option names will not work - for example,
3343 "armor" is a valid option for the options file, while "a" is not. Do
3344 not write the 2 dashes, but simply the name of the option and any
3345 required arguments. Lines with a hash ('#') as the first
3346 non-white-space character are ignored. Commands may be put in this file
3347 too, but that is not generally useful as the command will execute
3348 automatically with every execution of gpg.
3350 Please remember that option parsing stops as soon as a non-option is
3351 encountered, you can explicitly stop parsing by using the special option
3355 File: gnupg.info, Node: GPG Configuration Options, Next: GPG Key related Options, Up: GPG Options
3357 4.2.1 How to change the configuration
3358 -------------------------------------
3360 These options are used to change the configuration and most of them are
3361 usually found in the option file.
3363 '--default-key NAME'
3364 Use NAME as the default key to sign with. If this option is not
3365 used, the default key is the first key found in the secret keyring.
3366 Note that '-u' or '--local-user' overrides this option. This
3367 option may be given multiple times. In this case, the last key for
3368 which a secret key is available is used. If there is no secret key
3369 available for any of the specified values, GnuPG will not emit an
3370 error message but continue as if this option wasn't given.
3372 '--default-recipient NAME'
3373 Use NAME as default recipient if option '--recipient' is not used
3374 and don't ask if this is a valid one. NAME must be non-empty.
3376 '--default-recipient-self'
3377 Use the default key as default recipient if option '--recipient' is
3378 not used and don't ask if this is a valid one. The default key is
3379 the first one from the secret keyring or the one set with
3382 '--no-default-recipient'
3383 Reset '--default-recipient' and '--default-recipient-self'. Should
3384 not be used in an option file.
3387 Give more information during processing. If used twice, the input
3388 data is listed in detail.
3391 Reset verbose level to 0. Should not be used in an option file.
3394 Try to be as quiet as possible. Should not be used in an option
3399 Use batch mode. Never ask, do not allow interactive commands.
3400 '--no-batch' disables this option. Note that even with a filename
3401 given on the command line, gpg might still need to read from STDIN
3402 (in particular if gpg figures that the input is a detached
3403 signature and no data file has been specified). Thus if you do not
3404 want to feed data via STDIN, you should connect STDIN to
3407 It is highly recommended to use this option along with the options
3408 '--status-fd' and '--with-colons' for any unattended use of 'gpg'.
3409 Should not be used in an option file.
3412 Make sure that the TTY (terminal) is never used for any output.
3413 This option is needed in some cases because GnuPG sometimes prints
3414 warnings to the TTY even if '--batch' is used.
3417 Assume "yes" on most questions. Should not be used in an option
3421 Assume "no" on most questions. Should not be used in an option
3424 '--list-options PARAMETERS'
3425 This is a space or comma delimited string that gives options used
3426 when listing keys and signatures (that is, '--list-keys',
3427 '--check-signatures', '--list-public-keys', '--list-secret-keys',
3428 and the '--edit-key' functions). Options can be prepended with a
3429 'no-' (after the two dashes) to give the opposite meaning. The
3433 Causes '--list-keys', '--check-signatures',
3434 '--list-public-keys', and '--list-secret-keys' to display any
3435 photo IDs attached to the key. Defaults to no. See also
3436 '--photo-viewer'. Does not work with '--with-colons': see
3437 '--attribute-fd' for the appropriate way to get photo data for
3438 scripts and other frontends.
3441 Show usage information for keys and subkeys in the standard
3442 key listing. This is a list of letters indicating the allowed
3443 usage for a key ('E'=encryption, 'S'=signing,
3444 'C'=certification, 'A'=authentication). Defaults to yes.
3447 Show policy URLs in the '--check-signatures' listings.
3453 Show all, IETF standard, or user-defined signature notations
3454 in the '--check-signatures' listings. Defaults to no.
3457 Show any preferred keyserver URL in the '--check-signatures'
3458 listings. Defaults to no.
3461 Display the calculated validity of user IDs during key
3462 listings. Defaults to yes.
3465 Show revoked and expired user IDs in key listings. Defaults
3468 show-unusable-subkeys
3469 Show revoked and expired subkeys in key listings. Defaults to
3473 Display the keyring name at the head of key listings to show
3474 which keyring a given key resides on. Defaults to no.
3477 Show signature expiration dates (if any) during
3478 '--check-signatures' listings. Defaults to no.
3481 Include signature subpackets in the key listing. This option
3482 can take an optional argument list of the subpackets to list.
3483 If no argument is passed, list all subpackets. Defaults to
3484 no. This option is only meaningful when using '--with-colons'
3485 along with '--check-signatures'.
3488 For each user-id which has a valid mail address print only the
3489 fingerprint followed by the mail address.
3491 '--verify-options PARAMETERS'
3492 This is a space or comma delimited string that gives options used
3493 when verifying signatures. Options can be prepended with a 'no-'
3494 to give the opposite meaning. The options are:
3497 Display any photo IDs present on the key that issued the
3498 signature. Defaults to no. See also '--photo-viewer'.
3501 Show policy URLs in the signature being verified. Defaults to
3507 Show all, IETF standard, or user-defined signature notations
3508 in the signature being verified. Defaults to IETF standard.
3511 Show any preferred keyserver URL in the signature being
3512 verified. Defaults to yes.
3515 Display the calculated validity of the user IDs on the key
3516 that issued the signature. Defaults to yes.
3519 Show revoked and expired user IDs during signature
3520 verification. Defaults to no.
3522 show-primary-uid-only
3523 Show only the primary user ID during signature verification.
3524 That is all the AKA lines as well as photo Ids are not shown
3525 with the signature verification status.
3528 Enable PKA lookups to verify sender addresses. Note that PKA
3529 is based on DNS, and so enabling this option may disclose
3530 information on when and what signatures are verified or to
3531 whom data is encrypted. This is similar to the "web bug"
3532 described for the '--auto-key-retrieve' option.
3535 Raise the trust in a signature to full if the signature passes
3536 PKA validation. This option is only meaningful if pka-lookups
3539 '--enable-large-rsa'
3540 '--disable-large-rsa'
3541 With -generate-key and -batch, enable the creation of RSA secret
3542 keys as large as 8192 bit. Note: 8192 bit is more than is
3543 generally recommended. These large keys don't significantly
3544 improve security, but they are more expensive to use, and their
3545 signatures and certifications are larger. This option is only
3546 available if the binary was build with large-secmem support.
3550 Enable hash truncation for all DSA keys even for old DSA Keys up to
3551 1024 bit. This is also the default with '--openpgp'. Note that
3552 older versions of GnuPG also required this flag to allow the
3553 generation of DSA larger than 1024 bit.
3555 '--photo-viewer STRING'
3556 This is the command line that should be run to view a photo ID.
3557 "%i" will be expanded to a filename containing the photo. "%I"
3558 does the same, except the file will not be deleted once the viewer
3559 exits. Other flags are "%k" for the key ID, "%K" for the long key
3560 ID, "%f" for the key fingerprint, "%t" for the extension of the
3561 image type (e.g. "jpg"), "%T" for the MIME type of the image (e.g.
3562 "image/jpeg"), "%v" for the single-character calculated validity of
3563 the image being viewed (e.g. "f"), "%V" for the calculated
3564 validity as a string (e.g. "full"), "%U" for a base32 encoded hash
3565 of the user ID, and "%%" for an actual percent sign. If neither %i
3566 or %I are present, then the photo will be supplied to the viewer on
3569 On Unix the default viewer is 'xloadimage -fork -quiet -title
3570 'KeyID 0x%k' STDIN' with a fallback to 'display -title 'KeyID 0x%k'
3571 %i' and finally to 'xdg-open %i'. On Windows '!ShellExecute 400
3572 %i' is used; here the command is a meta command to use that API
3573 call followed by a wait time in milliseconds which is used to give
3574 the viewer time to read the temporary image file before gpg deletes
3575 it again. Note that if your image viewer program is not secure,
3576 then executing it from gpg does not make it secure.
3578 '--exec-path STRING'
3579 Sets a list of directories to search for photo viewers If not
3580 provided photo viewers use the 'PATH' environment variable.
3583 Add FILE to the current list of keyrings. If FILE begins with a
3584 tilde and a slash, these are replaced by the $HOME directory. If
3585 the filename does not contain a slash, it is assumed to be in the
3586 GnuPG home directory ("~/.gnupg" unless '--homedir' or $GNUPGHOME
3589 Note that this adds a keyring to the current list. If the intent
3590 is to use the specified keyring alone, use '--keyring' along with
3591 '--no-default-keyring'.
3593 If the option '--no-keyring' has been used no keyrings will be used
3596 '--primary-keyring FILE'
3597 This is a varian of '--keyring' and designates FILE as the primary
3598 public keyring. This means that newly imported keys (via
3599 '--import' or keyserver '--recv-from') will go to this keyring.
3601 '--secret-keyring FILE'
3602 This is an obsolete option and ignored. All secret keys are stored
3603 in the 'private-keys-v1.d' directory below the GnuPG home
3606 '--trustdb-name FILE'
3607 Use FILE instead of the default trustdb. If FILE begins with a
3608 tilde and a slash, these are replaced by the $HOME directory. If
3609 the filename does not contain a slash, it is assumed to be in the
3610 GnuPG home directory ('~/.gnupg' if '--homedir' or $GNUPGHOME is
3614 Set the name of the home directory to DIR. If this option is not
3615 used, the home directory defaults to '~/.gnupg'. It is only
3616 recognized when given on the command line. It also overrides any
3617 home directory stated through the environment variable 'GNUPGHOME'
3618 or (on Windows systems) by means of the Registry entry
3619 HKCU\SOFTWARE\GNU\GNUPG:HOMEDIR.
3621 On Windows systems it is possible to install GnuPG as a portable
3622 application. In this case only this command line option is
3623 considered, all other ways to set a home directory are ignored.
3625 To install GnuPG as a portable application under Windows, create an
3626 empty file named 'gpgconf.ctl' in the same directory as the tool
3627 'gpgconf.exe'. The root of the installation is then that
3628 directory; or, if 'gpgconf.exe' has been installed directly below a
3629 directory named 'bin', its parent directory. You also need to make
3630 sure that the following directories exist and are writable:
3631 'ROOT/home' for the GnuPG home and 'ROOT/usr/local/var/cache/gnupg'
3632 for internal cache files.
3634 '--display-charset NAME'
3635 Set the name of the native character set. This is used to convert
3636 some informational strings like user IDs to the proper UTF-8
3637 encoding. Note that this has nothing to do with the character set
3638 of data to be encrypted or signed; GnuPG does not recode
3639 user-supplied data. If this option is not used, the default
3640 character set is determined from the current locale. A verbosity
3641 level of 3 shows the chosen set. This option should not be used on
3642 Windows. Valid values for NAME are:
3645 This is the Latin 1 set.
3651 This is currently an alias for the Latin 1 set.
3654 The usual Russian set (RFC-1489).
3657 Bypass all translations and assume that the OS uses native
3662 Assume that command line arguments are given as UTF-8 strings. The
3663 default ('--no-utf8-strings') is to assume that arguments are
3664 encoded in the character set as specified by '--display-charset'.
3665 These options affect all following arguments. Both options may be
3666 used multiple times. This option should not be used in an option
3669 This option has no effect on Windows. There the internal used
3670 UTF-8 encoding is translated for console input and output. The
3671 command line arguments are expected as Unicode and translated to
3672 UTF-8. Thus when calling this program from another, make sure to
3673 use the Unicode version of CreateProcess.
3676 Read options from FILE and do not try to read them from the default
3677 options file in the homedir (see '--homedir'). This option is
3678 ignored if used in an options file.
3681 Shortcut for '--options /dev/null'. This option is detected before
3682 an attempt to open an option file. Using this option will also
3683 prevent the creation of a '~/.gnupg' homedir.
3686 '--compress-level N'
3687 '--bzip2-compress-level N'
3688 Set compression level to N for the ZIP and ZLIB compression
3689 algorithms. The default is to use the default compression level of
3690 zlib (normally 6). '--bzip2-compress-level' sets the compression
3691 level for the BZIP2 compression algorithm (defaulting to 6 as
3692 well). This is a different option from '--compress-level' since
3693 BZIP2 uses a significant amount of memory for each additional
3694 compression level. '-z' sets both. A value of 0 for N disables
3697 '--bzip2-decompress-lowmem'
3698 Use a different decompression method for BZIP2 compressed files.
3699 This alternate method uses a bit more than half the memory, but
3700 also runs at half the speed. This is useful under extreme low
3701 memory circumstances when the file was originally compressed at a
3702 high '--bzip2-compress-level'.
3704 '--mangle-dos-filenames'
3705 '--no-mangle-dos-filenames'
3706 Older version of Windows cannot handle filenames with more than one
3707 dot. '--mangle-dos-filenames' causes GnuPG to replace (rather than
3708 add to) the extension of an output filename to avoid this problem.
3709 This option is off by default and has no effect on non-Windows
3713 '--no-ask-cert-level'
3714 When making a key signature, prompt for a certification level. If
3715 this option is not specified, the certification level used is set
3716 via '--default-cert-level'. See '--default-cert-level' for
3717 information on the specific levels and how they are used.
3718 '--no-ask-cert-level' disables this option. This option defaults
3721 '--default-cert-level N'
3722 The default to use for the check level when signing a key.
3724 0 means you make no particular claim as to how carefully you
3727 1 means you believe the key is owned by the person who claims to
3728 own it but you could not, or did not verify the key at all. This
3729 is useful for a "persona" verification, where you sign the key of a
3732 2 means you did casual verification of the key. For example, this
3733 could mean that you verified the key fingerprint and checked the
3734 user ID on the key against a photo ID.
3736 3 means you did extensive verification of the key. For example,
3737 this could mean that you verified the key fingerprint with the
3738 owner of the key in person, and that you checked, by means of a
3739 hard to forge document with a photo ID (such as a passport) that
3740 the name of the key owner matches the name in the user ID on the
3741 key, and finally that you verified (by exchange of email) that the
3742 email address on the key belongs to the key owner.
3744 Note that the examples given above for levels 2 and 3 are just
3745 that: examples. In the end, it is up to you to decide just what
3746 "casual" and "extensive" mean to you.
3748 This option defaults to 0 (no particular claim).
3751 When building the trust database, treat any signatures with a
3752 certification level below this as invalid. Defaults to 2, which
3753 disregards level 1 signatures. Note that level 0 "no particular
3754 claim" signatures are always accepted.
3756 '--trusted-key LONG KEY ID OR FINGERPRINT'
3757 Assume that the specified key (which should be given as
3758 fingerprint) is as trustworthy as one of your own secret keys.
3759 This option is useful if you don't want to keep your secret keys
3760 (or one of them) online but still want to be able to check the
3761 validity of a given recipient's or signator's key. If the given
3762 key is not locally available but an LDAP keyserver is configured
3763 the missing key is imported from that server.
3765 '--trust-model {pgp|classic|tofu|tofu+pgp|direct|always|auto}'
3766 Set what trust model GnuPG should follow. The models are:
3769 This is the Web of Trust combined with trust signatures as
3770 used in PGP 5.x and later. This is the default trust model
3771 when creating a new trust database.
3774 This is the standard Web of Trust as introduced by PGP 2.
3777 TOFU stands for Trust On First Use. In this trust model, the
3778 first time a key is seen, it is memorized. If later another
3779 key with a user id with the same email address is seen, both
3780 keys are marked as suspect. In that case, the next time
3781 either is used, a warning is displayed describing the
3782 conflict, why it might have occurred (either the user
3783 generated a new key and failed to cross sign the old and new
3784 keys, the key is forgery, or a man-in-the-middle attack is
3785 being attempted), and the user is prompted to manually confirm
3786 the validity of the key in question.
3788 Because a potential attacker is able to control the email
3789 address and thereby circumvent the conflict detection
3790 algorithm by using an email address that is similar in
3791 appearance to a trusted email address, whenever a message is
3792 verified, statistics about the number of messages signed with
3793 the key are shown. In this way, a user can easily identify
3794 attacks using fake keys for regular correspondents.
3796 When compared with the Web of Trust, TOFU offers significantly
3797 weaker security guarantees. In particular, TOFU only helps
3798 ensure consistency (that is, that the binding between a key
3799 and email address doesn't change). A major advantage of TOFU
3800 is that it requires little maintenance to use correctly. To
3801 use the web of trust properly, you need to actively sign keys
3802 and mark users as trusted introducers. This is a
3803 time-consuming process and anecdotal evidence suggests that
3804 even security-conscious users rarely take the time to do this
3805 thoroughly and instead rely on an ad-hoc TOFU process.
3807 In the TOFU model, policies are associated with bindings
3808 between keys and email addresses (which are extracted from
3809 user ids and normalized). There are five policies, which can
3810 be set manually using the '--tofu-policy' option. The default
3811 policy can be set using the '--tofu-default-policy' option.
3813 The TOFU policies are: 'auto', 'good', 'unknown', 'bad' and
3814 'ask'. The 'auto' policy is used by default (unless
3815 overridden by '--tofu-default-policy') and marks a binding as
3816 marginally trusted. The 'good', 'unknown' and 'bad' policies
3817 mark a binding as fully trusted, as having unknown trust or as
3818 having trust never, respectively. The 'unknown' policy is
3819 useful for just using TOFU to detect conflicts, but to never
3820 assign positive trust to a binding. The final policy, 'ask'
3821 prompts the user to indicate the binding's trust. If batch
3822 mode is enabled (or input is inappropriate in the context),
3823 then the user is not prompted and the 'undefined' trust level
3827 This trust model combines TOFU with the Web of Trust. This is
3828 done by computing the trust level for each model and then
3829 taking the maximum trust level where the trust levels are
3830 ordered as follows: 'unknown < undefined < marginal < fully <
3831 ultimate < expired < never'.
3833 By setting '--tofu-default-policy=unknown', this model can be
3834 used to implement the web of trust with TOFU's conflict
3835 detection algorithm, but without its assignment of positive
3836 trust values, which some security-conscious users don't like.
3839 Key validity is set directly by the user and not calculated
3840 via the Web of Trust. This model is solely based on the key
3841 and does not distinguish user IDs. Note that when changing to
3842 another trust model the trust values assigned to a key are
3843 transformed into ownertrust values, which also indicate how
3844 you trust the owner of the key to sign other keys.
3847 Skip key validation and assume that used keys are always fully
3848 valid. You generally won't use this unless you are using some
3849 external validation scheme. This option also suppresses the
3850 "[uncertain]" tag printed with signature checks when there is
3851 no evidence that the user ID is bound to the key. Note that
3852 this trust model still does not allow the use of expired,
3853 revoked, or disabled keys.
3856 Select the trust model depending on whatever the internal
3857 trust database says. This is the default model if such a
3858 database already exists. Note that a tofu trust model is not
3859 considered here and must be enabled explicitly.
3861 '--auto-key-locate MECHANISMS'
3862 '--no-auto-key-locate'
3863 GnuPG can automatically locate and retrieve keys as needed using
3864 this option. This happens when encrypting to an email address (in
3865 the "user@example.com" form), and there are no "user@example.com"
3866 keys on the local keyring. This option takes any number of the
3867 mechanisms listed below, in the order they are to be tried.
3868 Instead of listing the mechanisms as comma delimited arguments, the
3869 option may also be given several times to add more mechanism. The
3870 option '--no-auto-key-locate' or the mechanism "clear" resets the
3871 list. The default is "local,wkd".
3874 Locate a key using DNS CERT, as specified in RFC-4398.
3877 Locate a key using DNS PKA.
3880 Locate a key using DANE, as specified in
3881 draft-ietf-dane-openpgpkey-05.txt.
3884 Locate a key using the Web Key Directory protocol.
3887 Using DNS Service Discovery, check the domain in question for
3888 any LDAP keyservers to use. If this fails, attempt to locate
3889 the key using the PGP Universal method of checking
3890 'ldap://keys.(thedomain)'.
3893 Locate the key using the Active Directory (Windows only).
3894 This method also allows to search by fingerprint using the
3895 command '--locate-external-key'. Note that this mechanism is
3896 actually a shortcut for the mechanism 'keyserver' but using
3897 "ldap:///" as the keyserver.
3900 Locate a key using a keyserver. This method also allows to
3901 search by fingerprint using the command
3902 '--locate-external-key' if any of the configured keyservers is
3906 In addition, a keyserver URL as used in the 'dirmngr'
3907 configuration may be used here to query that particular
3908 keyserver. This method also allows to search by fingerprint
3909 using the command '--locate-external-key' if the URL specifies
3913 Locate the key using the local keyrings. This mechanism
3914 allows the user to select the order a local key lookup is
3915 done. Thus using '--auto-key-locate local' is identical to
3916 '--no-auto-key-locate'.
3919 This flag disables the standard local key lookup, done before
3920 any of the mechanisms defined by the '--auto-key-locate' are
3921 tried. The position of this mechanism in the list does not
3922 matter. It is not required if 'local' is also used.
3925 Clear all defined mechanisms. This is useful to override
3926 mechanisms given in a config file. Note that a 'nodefault' in
3927 MECHANISMS will also be cleared unless it is given after the
3931 '--no-auto-key-import'
3932 This is an offline mechanism to get a missing key for signature
3933 verification and for later encryption to this key. If this option
3934 is enabled and a signature includes an embedded key, that key is
3935 used to verify the signature and on verification success that key
3936 is imported. The default is '--no-auto-key-import'.
3938 On the sender (signing) site the option '--include-key-block' needs
3939 to be used to put the public part of the signing key as “Key Block
3940 subpacket” into the signature.
3942 '--auto-key-retrieve'
3943 '--no-auto-key-retrieve'
3944 These options enable or disable the automatic retrieving of keys
3945 from a keyserver when verifying signatures made by keys that are
3946 not on the local keyring. The default is '--no-auto-key-retrieve'.
3948 The order of methods tried to lookup the key is:
3950 1. If the option '--auto-key-import' is set and the signatures
3951 includes an embedded key, that key is used to verify the signature
3952 and on verification success that key is imported.
3954 2. If a preferred keyserver is specified in the signature and the
3955 option 'honor-keyserver-url' is active (which is not the default),
3956 that keyserver is tried. Note that the creator of the signature
3957 uses the option '--sig-keyserver-url' to specify the preferred
3958 keyserver for data signatures.
3960 3. If the signature has the Signer's UID set (e.g. using
3961 '--sender' while creating the signature) a Web Key Directory (WKD)
3962 lookup is done. This is the default configuration but can be
3963 disabled by removing WKD from the auto-key-locate list or by using
3964 the option '--disable-signer-uid'.
3966 4. If the option 'honor-pka-record' is active, the legacy PKA
3969 5. If any keyserver is configured and the Issuer Fingerprint is
3970 part of the signature (since GnuPG 2.1.16), the configured
3971 keyservers are tried.
3973 Note that this option makes a "web bug" like behavior possible.
3974 Keyserver or Web Key Directory operators can see which keys you
3975 request, so by sending you a message signed by a brand new key
3976 (which you naturally will not have on your local keyring), the
3977 operator can tell both your IP address and the time when you
3978 verified the signature.
3980 '--keyid-format {none|short|0xshort|long|0xlong}'
3981 Select how to display key IDs. "none" does not show the key ID at
3982 all but shows the fingerprint in a separate line. "short" is the
3983 traditional 8-character key ID. "long" is the more accurate (but
3984 less convenient) 16-character key ID. Add an "0x" to either to
3985 include an "0x" at the beginning of the key ID, as in 0x99242560.
3986 Note that this option is ignored if the option '--with-colons' is
3990 This option is deprecated - please use the '--keyserver' in
3991 'dirmngr.conf' instead.
3993 Use NAME as your keyserver. This is the server that
3994 '--receive-keys', '--send-keys', and '--search-keys' will
3995 communicate with to receive keys from, send keys to, and search for
3996 keys on. The format of the NAME is a URI:
3997 'scheme:[//]keyservername[:port]' The scheme is the type of
3998 keyserver: "hkp"/"hkps" for the HTTP (or compatible) keyservers or
3999 "ldap"/"ldaps" for the LDAP keyservers. Note that your particular
4000 installation of GnuPG may have other keyserver types available as
4001 well. Keyserver schemes are case-insensitive.
4003 Most keyservers synchronize with each other, so there is generally
4004 no need to send keys to more than one server. The keyserver
4005 'hkp://keys.gnupg.net' uses round robin DNS to give a different
4006 keyserver each time you use it.
4008 '--keyserver-options {NAME=VALUE}'
4009 This is a space or comma delimited string that gives options for
4010 the keyserver. Options can be prefixed with a 'no-' to give the
4011 opposite meaning. Valid import-options or export-options may be
4012 used here as well to apply to importing ('--recv-key') or exporting
4013 ('--send-key') a key from a keyserver. While not all options are
4014 available for all keyserver types, some common options are:
4017 When searching for a key with '--search-keys', include keys
4018 that are marked on the keyserver as revoked. Note that not
4019 all keyservers differentiate between revoked and unrevoked
4020 keys, and for such keyservers this option is meaningless.
4021 Note also that most keyservers do not have cryptographic
4022 verification of key revocations, and so turning this option
4023 off may result in skipping keys that are incorrectly marked as
4027 When searching for a key with '--search-keys', include keys
4028 that are marked on the keyserver as disabled. Note that this
4029 option is not used with HKP keyservers.
4032 This is an obsolete alias for the option 'auto-key-retrieve'.
4033 Please do not use it; it will be removed in future versions..
4036 When using '--refresh-keys', if the key in question has a
4037 preferred keyserver URL, then use that preferred keyserver to
4038 refresh the key from. In addition, if auto-key-retrieve is
4039 set, and the signature being verified has a preferred
4040 keyserver URL, then use that preferred keyserver to fetch the
4041 key from. Note that this option introduces a "web bug": The
4042 creator of the key can see when the keys is refreshed. Thus
4043 this option is not enabled by default.
4046 If '--auto-key-retrieve' is used, and the signature being
4047 verified has a PKA record, then use the PKA information to
4048 fetch the key. Defaults to "yes".
4051 When receiving a key, include subkeys as potential targets.
4052 Note that this option is not used with HKP keyservers, as they
4053 do not support retrieving keys by subkey id.
4061 These options have no more function since GnuPG 2.1. Use the
4062 'dirmngr' configuration options instead.
4064 The default list of options is: "self-sigs-only, import-clean,
4065 repair-keys, repair-pks-subkey-bug, export-attributes,
4066 honor-pka-record". However, if the actual used source is an LDAP
4067 server "no-self-sigs-only" is assumed unless "self-sigs-only" has
4068 been explictly configured.
4070 '--completes-needed N'
4071 Number of completely trusted users to introduce a new key signer
4074 '--marginals-needed N'
4075 Number of marginally trusted users to introduce a new key signer
4078 '--tofu-default-policy {auto|good|unknown|bad|ask}'
4079 The default TOFU policy (defaults to 'auto'). For more information
4080 about the meaning of this option, *note trust-model-tofu::.
4082 '--max-cert-depth N'
4083 Maximum depth of a certification chain (default is 5).
4086 Do not cache the verification status of key signatures. Caching
4087 gives a much better performance in key listings. However, if you
4088 suspect that your public keyring is not safe against write
4089 modifications, you can use this option to disable the caching. It
4090 probably does not make sense to disable it because all kind of
4091 damage can be done if someone else has write access to your public
4094 '--auto-check-trustdb'
4095 '--no-auto-check-trustdb'
4096 If GnuPG feels that its information about the Web of Trust has to
4097 be updated, it automatically runs the '--check-trustdb' command
4098 internally. This may be a time consuming process.
4099 '--no-auto-check-trustdb' disables this option.
4103 This is dummy option. 'gpg' always requires the agent.
4106 This is dummy option. It has no effect when used with 'gpg'.
4108 '--agent-program FILE'
4109 Specify an agent program to be used for secret key operations. The
4110 default value is determined by running 'gpgconf' with the option
4111 '--list-dirs'. Note that the pipe symbol ('|') is used for a
4112 regression test suite hack and may thus not be used in the file
4115 '--dirmngr-program FILE'
4116 Specify a dirmngr program to be used for keyserver access. The
4117 default value is '/usr/local/bin/dirmngr'.
4120 Entirely disable the use of the Dirmngr.
4123 Do not start the gpg-agent or the dirmngr if it has not yet been
4124 started and its service is required. This option is mostly useful
4125 on machines where the connection to gpg-agent has been redirected
4126 to another machines. If dirmngr is required on the remote machine,
4127 it may be started manually using 'gpgconf --launch dirmngr'.
4130 Lock the databases the first time a lock is requested and do not
4131 release the lock until the process terminates.
4134 Release the locks every time a lock is no longer needed. Use this
4135 to override a previous '--lock-once' from a config file.
4138 Disable locking entirely. This option should be used only in very
4139 special environments, where it can be assured that only one process
4140 is accessing those files. A bootable floppy with a stand-alone
4141 encryption system will probably use this. Improper usage of this
4142 option may lead to data and key corruption.
4144 '--exit-on-status-write-error'
4145 This option will cause write errors on the status FD to immediately
4146 terminate the process. That should in fact be the default but it
4147 never worked this way and thus we need an option to enable this, so
4148 that the change won't break applications which close their end of a
4149 status fd connected pipe too early. Using this option along with
4150 '--enable-progress-filter' may be used to cleanly cancel long
4151 running gpg operations.
4153 '--limit-card-insert-tries N'
4154 With N greater than 0 the number of prompts asking to insert a
4155 smartcard gets limited to N-1. Thus with a value of 1 gpg won't at
4156 all ask to insert a card if none has been inserted at startup.
4157 This option is useful in the configuration file in case an
4158 application does not know about the smartcard support and waits ad
4159 infinitum for an inserted card.
4161 '--no-random-seed-file'
4162 GnuPG uses a file to store its internal random pool over
4163 invocations. This makes random generation faster; however
4164 sometimes write operations are not desired. This option can be
4165 used to achieve that with the cost of slower random generation.
4168 Suppress the initial copyright message.
4170 '--no-secmem-warning'
4171 Suppress the warning about "using insecure memory".
4173 '--no-permission-warning'
4174 Suppress the warning about unsafe file and home directory
4175 ('--homedir') permissions. Note that the permission checks that
4176 GnuPG performs are not intended to be authoritative, but rather
4177 they simply warn about certain common permission problems. Do not
4178 assume that the lack of a warning means that your system is secure.
4180 Note that the warning for unsafe '--homedir' permissions cannot be
4181 suppressed in the gpg.conf file, as this would allow an attacker to
4182 place an unsafe gpg.conf file in place, and use this file to
4183 suppress warnings about itself. The '--homedir' permissions
4184 warning may only be suppressed on the command line.
4187 '--no-require-secmem'
4188 Refuse to run if GnuPG cannot get secure memory. Defaults to no
4189 (i.e. run, but give a warning).
4191 '--require-cross-certification'
4192 '--no-require-cross-certification'
4193 When verifying a signature made from a subkey, ensure that the
4194 cross certification "back signature" on the subkey is present and
4195 valid. This protects against a subtle attack against subkeys that
4196 can sign. Defaults to '--require-cross-certification' for 'gpg'.
4200 Allow the user to do certain nonsensical or "silly" things like
4201 signing an expired or revoked key, or certain potentially
4202 incompatible things like generating unusual key types. This also
4203 disables certain warning messages about potentially incompatible
4204 actions. As the name implies, this option is for experts only. If
4205 you don't fully understand the implications of what it allows you
4206 to do, leave this off. '--no-expert' disables this option.
4209 File: gnupg.info, Node: GPG Key related Options, Next: GPG Input and Output, Prev: GPG Configuration Options, Up: GPG Options
4211 4.2.2 Key related options
4212 -------------------------
4216 Encrypt for user id NAME. If this option or '--hidden-recipient'
4217 is not specified, GnuPG asks for the user-id unless
4218 '--default-recipient' is given.
4220 '--hidden-recipient NAME'
4222 Encrypt for user ID NAME, but hide the key ID of this user's key.
4223 This option helps to hide the receiver of the message and is a
4224 limited countermeasure against traffic analysis. If this option or
4225 '--recipient' is not specified, GnuPG asks for the user ID unless
4226 '--default-recipient' is given.
4228 '--recipient-file FILE'
4230 This option is similar to '--recipient' except that it encrypts to
4231 a key stored in the given file. FILE must be the name of a file
4232 containing exactly one key. 'gpg' assumes that the key in this
4233 file is fully valid.
4235 '--hidden-recipient-file FILE'
4237 This option is similar to '--hidden-recipient' except that it
4238 encrypts to a key stored in the given file. FILE must be the name
4239 of a file containing exactly one key. 'gpg' assumes that the key
4240 in this file is fully valid.
4243 Same as '--recipient' but this one is intended for use in the
4244 options file and may be used with your own user-id as an
4245 "encrypt-to-self". These keys are only used when there are other
4246 recipients given either by use of '--recipient' or by the asked
4247 user id. No trust checking is performed for these user ids and
4248 even disabled keys can be used.
4250 '--hidden-encrypt-to NAME'
4251 Same as '--hidden-recipient' but this one is intended for use in
4252 the options file and may be used with your own user-id as a hidden
4253 "encrypt-to-self". These keys are only used when there are other
4254 recipients given either by use of '--recipient' or by the asked
4255 user id. No trust checking is performed for these user ids and
4256 even disabled keys can be used.
4259 Disable the use of all '--encrypt-to' and '--hidden-encrypt-to'
4262 '--group {NAME=VALUE}'
4263 Sets up a named group, which is similar to aliases in email
4264 programs. Any time the group name is a recipient ('-r' or
4265 '--recipient'), it will be expanded to the values specified.
4266 Multiple groups with the same name are automatically merged into a
4269 The values are 'key IDs' or fingerprints, but any key description
4270 is accepted. Note that a value with spaces in it will be treated
4271 as two different values. Note also there is only one level of
4272 expansion -- you cannot make an group that points to another group.
4273 When used from the command line, it may be necessary to quote the
4274 argument to this option to prevent the shell from treating it as
4278 Remove a given entry from the '--group' list.
4281 Remove all entries from the '--group' list.
4285 Use NAME as the key to sign with. Note that this option overrides
4289 This option has two purposes. MBOX must either be a complete user
4290 id with a proper mail address or just a mail address. When
4291 creating a signature this option tells gpg the user id of a key
4292 used to make a signature if the key was not directly specified by a
4293 user id. When verifying a signature the MBOX is used to restrict
4294 the information printed by the TOFU code to matching user ids.
4296 '--try-secret-key NAME'
4297 For hidden recipients GPG needs to know the keys to use for trial
4298 decryption. The key set with '--default-key' is always tried
4299 first, but this is often not sufficient. This option allows
4300 setting more keys to be used for trial decryption. Although any
4301 valid user-id specification may be used for NAME it makes sense to
4302 use at least the long keyid to avoid ambiguities. Note that
4303 gpg-agent might pop up a pinentry for a lot keys to do the trial
4304 decryption. If you want to stop all further trial decryption you
4305 may use close-window button instead of the cancel button.
4308 Don't look at the key ID as stored in the message but try all
4309 secret keys in turn to find the right decryption key. This option
4310 forces the behaviour as used by anonymous recipients (created by
4311 using '--throw-keyids' or '--hidden-recipient') and might come
4312 handy in case where an encrypted message contains a bogus key ID.
4314 '--skip-hidden-recipients'
4315 '--no-skip-hidden-recipients'
4316 During decryption skip all anonymous recipients. This option helps
4317 in the case that people use the hidden recipients feature to hide
4318 their own encrypt-to key from others. If one has many secret keys
4319 this may lead to a major annoyance because all keys are tried in
4320 turn to decrypt something which was not really intended for it.
4321 The drawback of this option is that it is currently not possible to
4322 decrypt a message which includes real anonymous recipients.
4325 File: gnupg.info, Node: GPG Input and Output, Next: OpenPGP Options, Prev: GPG Key related Options, Up: GPG Options
4327 4.2.3 Input and Output
4328 ----------------------
4332 Create ASCII armored output. The default is to create the binary
4336 Assume the input data is not in ASCII armored format.
4340 Write output to FILE. To write to stdout use '-' as the filename.
4343 This option sets a limit on the number of bytes that will be
4344 generated when processing a file. Since OpenPGP supports various
4345 levels of compression, it is possible that the plaintext of a given
4346 message may be significantly larger than the original OpenPGP
4347 message. While GnuPG works properly with such messages, there is
4348 often a desire to set a maximum file size that will be generated
4349 before processing is forced to stop by the OS limits. Defaults to
4350 0, which means "no limit".
4352 '--input-size-hint N'
4353 This option can be used to tell GPG the size of the input data in
4354 bytes. N must be a positive base-10 number. This option is only
4355 useful if the input is not taken from a file. GPG may use this
4356 hint to optimize its buffer allocation strategy. It is also used
4357 by the '--status-fd' line "PROGRESS" to provide a value for "total"
4358 if that is not available by other means.
4360 '--key-origin STRING[,URL]'
4361 gpg can track the origin of a key. Certain origins are implicitly
4362 known (e.g. keyserver, web key directory) and set. For a standard
4363 import the origin of the keys imported can be set with this option.
4364 To list the possible values use "help" for STRING. Some origins
4365 can store an optional URL argument. That URL can appended to
4366 STRING after a comma.
4368 '--import-options PARAMETERS'
4369 This is a space or comma delimited string that gives options for
4370 importing keys. Options can be prepended with a 'no-' to give the
4371 opposite meaning. The options are:
4374 Allow importing key signatures marked as "local". This is not
4375 generally useful unless a shared keyring scheme is being used.
4379 Normally possible still existing ownertrust values of a key
4380 are cleared if a key is imported. This is in general
4381 desirable so that a formerly deleted key does not
4382 automatically gain an ownertrust values merely due to import.
4383 On the other hand it is sometimes necessary to re-import a
4384 trusted set of keys again but keeping already assigned
4385 ownertrust values. This can be achieved by using this option.
4387 repair-pks-subkey-bug
4388 During import, attempt to repair the damage caused by the PKS
4389 keyserver bug (pre version 0.9.6) that mangles keys with
4390 multiple subkeys. Note that this cannot completely repair the
4391 damaged key as some crucial data is removed by the keyserver,
4392 but it does at least give you back one subkey. Defaults to no
4393 for regular '--import' and to yes for keyserver
4398 Show a listing of the key as imported right before it is
4399 stored. This can be combined with the option '--dry-run' to
4400 only look at keys; the option 'show-only' is a shortcut for
4401 this combination. The command '--show-keys' is another
4402 shortcut for this. Note that suffixes like '#' for "sec" and
4403 "sbb" lines may or may not be printed.
4406 Run the entire import code but instead of storing the key to
4407 the local keyring write it to the output. The export options
4408 'export-pka' and 'export-dane' affect the output. This option
4409 can be used to remove all invalid parts from a key without the
4413 During import, allow key updates to existing keys, but do not
4414 allow any new keys to be imported. Defaults to no.
4417 After import, compact (remove all signatures except the
4418 self-signature) any user IDs from the new key that are not
4419 usable. Then, remove any signatures from the new key that are
4420 not usable. This includes signatures that were issued by keys
4421 that are not present on the keyring. This option is the same
4422 as running the '--edit-key' command "clean" after import.
4426 Accept only self-signatures while importing a key. All other
4427 key signatures are skipped at an early import stage. This
4428 option can be used with 'keyserver-options' to mitigate
4429 attempts to flood a key with bogus signatures from a
4430 keyserver. The drawback is that all other valid key
4431 signatures, as required by the Web of Trust are also not
4432 imported. Note that when using this option along with
4433 import-clean it suppresses the final clean step after merging
4434 the imported key into the existing key.
4437 After import, fix various problems with the keys. For
4438 example, this reorders signatures, and strips duplicate
4439 signatures. Defaults to yes.
4442 Import the smallest key possible. This removes all signatures
4443 except the most recent self-signature on each user ID. This
4444 option is the same as running the '--edit-key' command
4445 "minimize" after import. Defaults to no.
4449 Import in key restore mode. This imports all data which is
4450 usually skipped during import; including all GnuPG specific
4451 data. All other contradicting options are overridden.
4453 '--import-filter {NAME=EXPR}'
4454 '--export-filter {NAME=EXPR}'
4455 These options define an import/export filter which are applied to
4456 the imported/exported keyblock right before it will be
4457 stored/written. NAME defines the type of filter to use, EXPR the
4458 expression to evaluate. The option can be used several times which
4459 then appends more expression to the same NAME.
4461 The available filter types are:
4464 This filter will keep a user id packet and its dependent
4465 packets in the keyblock if the expression evaluates to true.
4468 This filter drops the selected subkeys. Currently only
4469 implemented for -export-filter.
4472 This filter drops the selected key signatures on user ids.
4473 Self-signatures are not considered. Currently only
4474 implemented for -import-filter.
4476 For the syntax of the expression see the chapter "FILTER
4477 EXPRESSIONS". The property names for the expressions depend on the
4478 actual filter type and are indicated in the following table.
4480 The available properties are:
4483 A string with the user id. (keep-uid)
4486 The addr-spec part of a user id with mailbox or the empty
4490 A number with the public key algorithm of a key or subkey
4491 packet. (drop-subkey)
4495 The first is the timestamp a public key or subkey packet was
4496 created. The second is the same but given as an ISO string,
4497 e.g. "2016-08-17". (drop-subkey)
4500 The hexified fingerprint of the current subkey or primary key.
4504 Boolean indicating whether the user id is the primary one.
4508 Boolean indicating whether a user id (keep-uid), a key
4509 (drop-subkey), or a signature (drop-sig) expired.
4512 Boolean indicating whether a user id (keep-uid) or a key
4513 (drop-subkey) has been revoked.
4516 Boolean indicating whether a primary key is disabled. (not
4520 Boolean indicating whether a key or subkey is a secret one.
4524 A string indicating the usage flags for the subkey, from the
4525 sequence "ecsa?". For example, a subkey capable of just
4526 signing and authentication would be an exact match for "sa".
4531 The first is the timestamp a signature packet was created.
4532 The second is the same but given as an ISO date string, e.g.
4533 "2016-08-17". (drop-sig)
4536 A number with the public key algorithm of a signature packet.
4540 A number with the digest algorithm of a signature packet.
4543 '--export-options PARAMETERS'
4544 This is a space or comma delimited string that gives options for
4545 exporting keys. Options can be prepended with a 'no-' to give the
4546 opposite meaning. The options are:
4549 Allow exporting key signatures marked as "local". This is not
4550 generally useful unless a shared keyring scheme is being used.
4554 Include attribute user IDs (photo IDs) while exporting. Not
4555 including attribute user IDs is useful to export keys that are
4556 going to be used by an OpenPGP program that does not accept
4557 attribute user IDs. Defaults to yes.
4559 export-sensitive-revkeys
4560 Include designated revoker information that was marked as
4561 "sensitive". Defaults to no.
4565 Export for use as a backup. The exported data includes all
4566 data which is needed to restore the key or keys later with
4567 GnuPG. The format is basically the OpenPGP format but enhanced
4568 with GnuPG specific data. All other contradicting options are
4572 Compact (remove all signatures from) user IDs on the key being
4573 exported if the user IDs are not usable. Also, do not export
4574 any signatures that are not usable. This includes signatures
4575 that were issued by keys that are not present on the keyring.
4576 This option is the same as running the '--edit-key' command
4577 "clean" before export except that the local copy of the key is
4578 not modified. Defaults to no.
4581 Export the smallest key possible. This removes all signatures
4582 except the most recent self-signature on each user ID. This
4583 option is the same as running the '--edit-key' command
4584 "minimize" before export except that the local copy of the key
4585 is not modified. Defaults to no.
4588 Instead of outputting the key material output PKA records
4589 suitable to put into DNS zone files. An ORIGIN line is
4590 printed before each record to allow diverting the records to
4591 the corresponding zone file.
4594 Instead of outputting the key material output OpenPGP DANE
4595 records suitable to put into DNS zone files. An ORIGIN line
4596 is printed before each record to allow diverting the records
4597 to the corresponding zone file.
4600 Print key listings delimited by colons. Note that the output will
4601 be encoded in UTF-8 regardless of any '--display-charset' setting.
4602 This format is useful when GnuPG is called from scripts and other
4603 programs as it is easily machine parsed. The details of this
4604 format are documented in the file 'doc/DETAILS', which is included
4605 in the GnuPG source distribution.
4608 Do not merge primary user ID and primary key in '--with-colon'
4609 listing mode and print all timestamps as seconds since 1970-01-01.
4610 Since GnuPG 2.0.10, this mode is always used and thus this option
4611 is obsolete; it does not harm to use it though.
4613 '--legacy-list-mode'
4614 Revert to the pre-2.1 public key list mode. This only affects the
4615 human readable output and not the machine interface (i.e.
4616 '--with-colons'). Note that the legacy format does not convey
4617 suitable information for elliptic curves.
4619 '--with-fingerprint'
4620 Same as the command '--fingerprint' but changes only the format of
4621 the output and may be used together with another command.
4623 '--with-subkey-fingerprint'
4624 If a fingerprint is printed for the primary key, this option forces
4625 printing of the fingerprint for all subkeys. This could also be
4626 achieved by using the '--with-fingerprint' twice but by using this
4627 option along with keyid-format "none" a compact fingerprint is
4630 '--with-icao-spelling'
4631 Print the ICAO spelling of the fingerprint in addition to the hex
4635 Include the keygrip in the key listings. In '--with-colons' mode
4636 this is implicitly enable for secret keys.
4639 Include the locally held information on the origin and last update
4640 of a key in a key listing. In '--with-colons' mode this is always
4641 printed. This data is currently experimental and shall not be
4642 considered part of the stable API.
4645 Print a Web Key Directory identifier along with each user ID in key
4646 listings. This is an experimental feature and semantics may
4650 Include info about the presence of a secret key in public key
4651 listings done with '--with-colons'.
4654 File: gnupg.info, Node: OpenPGP Options, Next: Compliance Options, Prev: GPG Input and Output, Up: GPG Options
4656 4.2.4 OpenPGP protocol specific options
4657 ---------------------------------------
4661 Treat input files as text and store them in the OpenPGP canonical
4662 text form with standard "CRLF" line endings. This also sets the
4663 necessary flags to inform the recipient that the encrypted or
4664 signed data is text and may need its line endings converted back to
4665 whatever the local system uses. This option is useful when
4666 communicating between two platforms that have different line ending
4667 conventions (UNIX-like to Mac, Mac to Windows, etc).
4668 '--no-textmode' disables this option, and is the default.
4671 '--no-force-v3-sigs'
4673 '--no-force-v4-certs'
4674 These options are obsolete and have no effect since GnuPG 2.1.
4678 These options are obsolete and have no effect since GnuPG 2.2.8.
4679 The MDC is always used. But note: If the creation of a legacy
4680 non-MDC message is exceptionally required, the option '--rfc2440'
4683 '--disable-signer-uid'
4684 By default the user ID of the signing key is embedded in the data
4685 signature. As of now this is only done if the signing key has been
4686 specified with 'local-user' using a mail address, or with 'sender'.
4687 This information can be helpful for verifier to locate the key; see
4688 option '--auto-key-retrieve'.
4690 '--include-key-block'
4691 This option is used to embed the actual signing key into a data
4692 signature. The embedded key is stripped down to a single user id
4693 and includes only the signing subkey used to create the signature
4694 as well as as valid encryption subkeys. All other info is removed
4695 from the key to keep it and thus the signature small. This option
4696 is the OpenPGP counterpart to the 'gpgsm' option '--include-certs'.
4698 '--personal-cipher-preferences STRING'
4699 Set the list of personal cipher preferences to STRING. Use 'gpg
4700 --version' to get a list of available algorithms, and use 'none' to
4701 set no preference at all. This allows the user to safely override
4702 the algorithm chosen by the recipient key preferences, as GPG will
4703 only select an algorithm that is usable by all recipients. The
4704 most highly ranked cipher in this list is also used for the
4705 '--symmetric' encryption command.
4707 '--personal-digest-preferences STRING'
4708 Set the list of personal digest preferences to STRING. Use 'gpg
4709 --version' to get a list of available algorithms, and use 'none' to
4710 set no preference at all. This allows the user to safely override
4711 the algorithm chosen by the recipient key preferences, as GPG will
4712 only select an algorithm that is usable by all recipients. The
4713 most highly ranked digest algorithm in this list is also used when
4714 signing without encryption (e.g. '--clear-sign' or '--sign').
4716 '--personal-compress-preferences STRING'
4717 Set the list of personal compression preferences to STRING. Use
4718 'gpg --version' to get a list of available algorithms, and use
4719 'none' to set no preference at all. This allows the user to safely
4720 override the algorithm chosen by the recipient key preferences, as
4721 GPG will only select an algorithm that is usable by all recipients.
4722 The most highly ranked compression algorithm in this list is also
4723 used when there are no recipient keys to consider (e.g.
4726 '--s2k-cipher-algo NAME'
4727 Use NAME as the cipher algorithm for symmetric encryption with a
4728 passphrase if '--personal-cipher-preferences' and '--cipher-algo'
4729 are not given. The default is AES-128.
4731 '--s2k-digest-algo NAME'
4732 Use NAME as the digest algorithm used to mangle the passphrases for
4733 symmetric encryption. The default is SHA-1.
4736 Selects how passphrases for symmetric encryption are mangled. If N
4737 is 0 a plain passphrase (which is in general not recommended) will
4738 be used, a 1 adds a salt (which should not be used) to the
4739 passphrase and a 3 (the default) iterates the whole process a
4740 number of times (see '--s2k-count').
4743 Specify how many times the passphrases mangling for symmetric
4744 encryption is repeated. This value may range between 1024 and
4745 65011712 inclusive. The default is inquired from gpg-agent. Note
4746 that not all values in the 1024-65011712 range are legal and if an
4747 illegal value is selected, GnuPG will round up to the nearest legal
4748 value. This option is only meaningful if '--s2k-mode' is set to
4752 File: gnupg.info, Node: Compliance Options, Next: GPG Esoteric Options, Prev: OpenPGP Options, Up: GPG Options
4754 4.2.5 Compliance options
4755 ------------------------
4757 These options control what GnuPG is compliant to. Only one of these
4758 options may be active at a time. Note that the default setting of this
4759 is nearly always the correct one. See the INTEROPERABILITY WITH OTHER
4760 OPENPGP PROGRAMS section below before using one of these options.
4763 Use standard GnuPG behavior. This is essentially OpenPGP behavior
4764 (see '--openpgp'), but with some additional workarounds for common
4765 compatibility problems in different versions of PGP. This is the
4766 default option, so it is not generally needed, but it may be useful
4767 to override a different compliance option in the gpg.conf file.
4770 Reset all packet, cipher and digest options to strict OpenPGP
4771 behavior. Use this option to reset all previous options like
4772 '--s2k-*', '--cipher-algo', '--digest-algo' and '--compress-algo'
4773 to OpenPGP compliant values. All PGP workarounds are disabled.
4776 Reset all packet, cipher and digest options to strict RFC-4880
4777 behavior. Note that this is currently the same thing as
4781 Enable experimental features from proposed updates to RFC-4880.
4782 This option can be used in addition to the other compliance
4783 options. Warning: The behavior may change with any GnuPG release
4784 and created keys or data may not be usable with future GnuPG
4788 Reset all packet, cipher and digest options to strict RFC-2440
4789 behavior. Note that by using this option encryption packets are
4790 created in a legacy mode without MDC protection. This is dangerous
4791 and should thus only be used for experiments. See also option
4792 '--ignore-mdc-error'.
4795 Set up all options to be as PGP 6 compliant as possible. This
4796 restricts you to the ciphers IDEA (if the IDEA plugin is
4797 installed), 3DES, and CAST5, the hashes MD5, SHA1 and RIPEMD160,
4798 and the compression algorithms none and ZIP. This also disables
4799 '--throw-keyids', and making signatures with signing subkeys as PGP
4800 6 does not understand signatures made by signing subkeys.
4802 This option implies '--escape-from-lines'.
4805 Set up all options to be as PGP 7 compliant as possible. This is
4806 identical to '--pgp6' except that MDCs are not disabled, and the
4807 list of allowable ciphers is expanded to add AES128, AES192,
4808 AES256, and TWOFISH.
4811 Set up all options to be as PGP 8 compliant as possible. PGP 8 is
4812 a lot closer to the OpenPGP standard than previous versions of PGP,
4813 so all this does is disable '--throw-keyids' and set
4814 '--escape-from-lines'. All algorithms are allowed except for the
4815 SHA224, SHA384, and SHA512 digests.
4817 '--compliance STRING'
4818 This option can be used instead of one of the options above. Valid
4819 values for STRING are the above option names (without the double
4820 dash) and possibly others as shown when using "help" for STRING.
4822 '--min-rsa-length N'
4823 This option adjusts the compliance mode "de-vs" for stricter key
4824 size requirements. For example, a value of 3000 turns rsa2048 and
4825 dsa2048 keys into non-VS-NfD compliant keys.
4827 '--require-compliance'
4828 To check that data has been encrypted according to the rules of the
4829 current compliance mode, a gpg user needs to evaluate the status
4830 lines. This is allows frontends to handle compliance check in a
4831 more flexible way. However, for scripted use the required
4832 evaluation of the status-line requires quite some effort; this
4833 option can be used instead to make sure that the gpg process exits
4834 with a failure if the compliance rules are not fulfilled. Note
4835 that this option has currently an effect only in "de-vs" mode.
4838 File: gnupg.info, Node: GPG Esoteric Options, Next: Deprecated Options, Prev: Compliance Options, Up: GPG Options
4840 4.2.6 Doing things one usually doesn't want to do
4841 -------------------------------------------------
4845 Don't make any changes (this is not completely implemented).
4848 Changes the behaviour of some commands. This is like '--dry-run'
4849 but different in some cases. The semantic of this option may be
4850 extended in the future. Currently it only skips the actual
4851 decryption pass and therefore enables a fast listing of the
4856 Prompt before overwriting any files.
4858 '--debug-level LEVEL'
4859 Select the debug level for investigating problems. LEVEL may be a
4860 numeric value or by a keyword:
4863 No debugging at all. A value of less than 1 may be used
4864 instead of the keyword.
4866 Some basic debug messages. A value between 1 and 2 may be
4867 used instead of the keyword.
4869 More verbose debug messages. A value between 3 and 5 may be
4870 used instead of the keyword.
4872 Even more detailed messages. A value between 6 and 8 may be
4873 used instead of the keyword.
4875 All of the debug messages you can get. A value greater than 8
4876 may be used instead of the keyword. The creation of hash
4877 tracing files is only enabled if the keyword is used.
4879 How these messages are mapped to the actual debugging flags is not
4880 specified and may change with newer releases of this program. They
4881 are however carefully selected to best aid in debugging.
4884 Set debugging flags. All flags are or-ed and FLAGS may be given in
4885 C syntax (e.g. 0x0042) or as a comma separated list of flag names.
4886 To get a list of all supported flags the single word "help" can be
4890 Set all useful debugging flags.
4893 Set stdout into line buffered mode. This option is only honored
4894 when given on the command line.
4896 '--faked-system-time EPOCH'
4897 This option is only useful for testing; it sets the system time
4898 back or forth to EPOCH which is the number of seconds elapsed since
4899 the year 1970. Alternatively EPOCH may be given as a full ISO time
4900 string (e.g. "20070924T154812").
4902 If you suffix EPOCH with an exclamation mark (!), the system time
4903 will appear to be frozen at the specified time.
4905 '--enable-progress-filter'
4906 Enable certain PROGRESS status outputs. This option allows
4907 frontends to display a progress indicator while gpg is processing
4908 larger files. There is a slight performance overhead using it.
4911 Write special status strings to the file descriptor N. See the
4912 file DETAILS in the documentation for a listing of them.
4914 '--status-file FILE'
4915 Same as '--status-fd', except the status data is written to file
4919 Write log output to file descriptor N and not to STDERR.
4922 '--logger-file FILE'
4923 Same as '--logger-fd', except the logger data is written to file
4924 FILE. Use 'socket://' to log to a socket. Note that in this
4925 version of gpg the option has only an effect if '--batch' is also
4929 Write attribute subpackets to the file descriptor N. This is most
4930 useful for use with '--status-fd', since the status messages are
4931 needed to separate out the various subpackets from the stream
4932 delivered to the file descriptor.
4934 '--attribute-file FILE'
4935 Same as '--attribute-fd', except the attribute data is written to
4940 Use STRING as a comment string in cleartext signatures and ASCII
4941 armored messages or keys (see '--armor'). The default behavior is
4942 not to use a comment string. '--comment' may be repeated multiple
4943 times to get multiple comment strings. '--no-comments' removes all
4944 comments. It is a good idea to keep the length of a single comment
4945 below 60 characters to avoid problems with mail programs wrapping
4946 such lines. Note that comment lines, like all other header lines,
4947 are not protected by the signature.
4951 Force inclusion of the version string in ASCII armored output. If
4952 given once only the name of the program and the major number is
4953 emitted, given twice the minor is also emitted, given thrice the
4954 micro is added, and given four times an operating system
4955 identification is also emitted. '--no-emit-version' (default)
4956 disables the version line.
4958 '--sig-notation {NAME=VALUE}'
4959 '--cert-notation {NAME=VALUE}'
4960 '-N, --set-notation {NAME=VALUE}'
4961 Put the name value pair into the signature as notation data. NAME
4962 must consist only of printable characters or spaces, and must
4963 contain a '@' character in the form keyname@domain.example.com
4964 (substituting the appropriate keyname and domain name, of course).
4965 This is to help prevent pollution of the IETF reserved notation
4966 namespace. The '--expert' flag overrides the '@' check. VALUE may
4967 be any printable string; it will be encoded in UTF-8, so you should
4968 check that your '--display-charset' is set correctly. If you
4969 prefix NAME with an exclamation mark (!), the notation data will be
4970 flagged as critical (rfc4880:5.2.3.16). '--sig-notation' sets a
4971 notation for data signatures. '--cert-notation' sets a notation
4972 for key signatures (certifications). '--set-notation' sets both.
4974 There are special codes that may be used in notation names. "%k"
4975 will be expanded into the key ID of the key being signed, "%K" into
4976 the long key ID of the key being signed, "%f" into the fingerprint
4977 of the key being signed, "%s" into the key ID of the key making the
4978 signature, "%S" into the long key ID of the key making the
4979 signature, "%g" into the fingerprint of the key making the
4980 signature (which might be a subkey), "%p" into the fingerprint of
4981 the primary key of the key making the signature, "%c" into the
4982 signature count from the OpenPGP smartcard, and "%%" results in a
4983 single "%". %k, %K, and %f are only meaningful when making a key
4984 signature (certification), and %c is only meaningful when using the
4987 '--known-notation NAME'
4988 Adds NAME to a list of known critical signature notations. The
4989 effect of this is that gpg will not mark a signature with a
4990 critical signature notation of that name as bad. Note that gpg
4991 already knows by default about a few critical signatures notation
4994 '--sig-policy-url STRING'
4995 '--cert-policy-url STRING'
4996 '--set-policy-url STRING'
4997 Use STRING as a Policy URL for signatures (rfc4880:5.2.3.20). If
4998 you prefix it with an exclamation mark (!), the policy URL packet
4999 will be flagged as critical. '--sig-policy-url' sets a policy url
5000 for data signatures. '--cert-policy-url' sets a policy url for key
5001 signatures (certifications). '--set-policy-url' sets both.
5003 The same %-expandos used for notation data are available here as
5006 '--sig-keyserver-url STRING'
5007 Use STRING as a preferred keyserver URL for data signatures. If
5008 you prefix it with an exclamation mark (!), the keyserver URL
5009 packet will be flagged as critical.
5011 The same %-expandos used for notation data are available here as
5014 '--set-filename STRING'
5015 Use STRING as the filename which is stored inside messages. This
5016 overrides the default, which is to use the actual filename of the
5017 file being encrypted. Using the empty string for STRING
5018 effectively removes the filename from the output.
5020 '--for-your-eyes-only'
5021 '--no-for-your-eyes-only'
5022 Set the 'for your eyes only' flag in the message. This causes
5023 GnuPG to refuse to save the file unless the '--output' option is
5024 given, and PGP to use a "secure viewer" with a claimed
5025 Tempest-resistant font to display the message. This option
5026 overrides '--set-filename'. '--no-for-your-eyes-only' disables
5029 '--use-embedded-filename'
5030 '--no-use-embedded-filename'
5031 Try to create a file with a name as embedded in the data. This can
5032 be a dangerous option as it enables overwriting files. Defaults to
5033 no. Note that the option '--output' overrides this option.
5035 '--cipher-algo NAME'
5036 Use NAME as cipher algorithm. Running the program with the command
5037 '--version' yields a list of supported algorithms. If this is not
5038 used the cipher algorithm is selected from the preferences stored
5039 with the key. In general, you do not want to use this option as it
5040 allows you to violate the OpenPGP standard.
5041 '--personal-cipher-preferences' is the safe way to accomplish the
5044 '--digest-algo NAME'
5045 Use NAME as the message digest algorithm. Running the program with
5046 the command '--version' yields a list of supported algorithms. In
5047 general, you do not want to use this option as it allows you to
5048 violate the OpenPGP standard. '--personal-digest-preferences' is
5049 the safe way to accomplish the same thing.
5051 '--compress-algo NAME'
5052 Use compression algorithm NAME. "zlib" is RFC-1950 ZLIB
5053 compression. "zip" is RFC-1951 ZIP compression which is used by
5054 PGP. "bzip2" is a more modern compression scheme that can compress
5055 some things better than zip or zlib, but at the cost of more memory
5056 used during compression and decompression. "uncompressed" or
5057 "none" disables compression. If this option is not used, the
5058 default behavior is to examine the recipient key preferences to see
5059 which algorithms the recipient supports. If all else fails, ZIP is
5060 used for maximum compatibility.
5062 ZLIB may give better compression results than ZIP, as the
5063 compression window size is not limited to 8k. BZIP2 may give even
5064 better compression results than that, but will use a significantly
5065 larger amount of memory while compressing and decompressing. This
5066 may be significant in low memory situations. Note, however, that
5067 PGP (all versions) only supports ZIP compression. Using any
5068 algorithm other than ZIP or "none" will make the message unreadable
5069 with PGP. In general, you do not want to use this option as it
5070 allows you to violate the OpenPGP standard.
5071 '--personal-compress-preferences' is the safe way to accomplish the
5074 '--cert-digest-algo NAME'
5075 Use NAME as the message digest algorithm used when signing a key.
5076 Running the program with the command '--version' yields a list of
5077 supported algorithms. Be aware that if you choose an algorithm
5078 that GnuPG supports but other OpenPGP implementations do not, then
5079 some users will not be able to use the key signatures you make, or
5080 quite possibly your entire key.
5082 '--disable-cipher-algo NAME'
5083 Never allow the use of NAME as cipher algorithm. The given name
5084 will not be checked so that a later loaded algorithm will still get
5087 '--disable-pubkey-algo NAME'
5088 Never allow the use of NAME as public key algorithm. The given
5089 name will not be checked so that a later loaded algorithm will
5094 Do not put the recipient key IDs into encrypted messages. This
5095 helps to hide the receivers of the message and is a limited
5096 countermeasure against traffic analysis.(1) On the receiving side,
5097 it may slow down the decryption process because all available
5098 secret keys must be tried. '--no-throw-keyids' disables this
5099 option. This option is essentially the same as using
5100 '--hidden-recipient' for all recipients.
5102 '--not-dash-escaped'
5103 This option changes the behavior of cleartext signatures so that
5104 they can be used for patch files. You should not send such an
5105 armored file via email because all spaces and line endings are
5106 hashed too. You can not use this option for data which has 5
5107 dashes at the beginning of a line, patch files don't have this. A
5108 special armor header line tells GnuPG about this cleartext
5111 '--escape-from-lines'
5112 '--no-escape-from-lines'
5113 Because some mailers change lines starting with "From " to ">From "
5114 it is good to handle such lines in a special way when creating
5115 cleartext signatures to prevent the mail system from breaking the
5116 signature. Note that all other PGP versions do it this way too.
5117 Enabled by default. '--no-escape-from-lines' disables this option.
5119 '--passphrase-repeat N'
5120 Specify how many times 'gpg' will request a new passphrase be
5121 repeated. This is useful for helping memorize a passphrase.
5122 Defaults to 1 repetition; can be set to 0 to disable any passphrase
5123 repetition. Note that a N greater than 1 will pop up the pinentry
5124 window N+1 times even if a modern pinentry with two entry fields is
5128 Read the passphrase from file descriptor N. Only the first line
5129 will be read from file descriptor N. If you use 0 for N, the
5130 passphrase will be read from STDIN. This can only be used if only
5131 one passphrase is supplied.
5133 Note that since Version 2.0 this passphrase is only used if the
5134 option '--batch' has also been given. Since Version 2.1 the
5135 '--pinentry-mode' also needs to be set to 'loopback'.
5137 '--passphrase-file FILE'
5138 Read the passphrase from file FILE. Only the first line will be
5139 read from file FILE. This can only be used if only one passphrase
5140 is supplied. Obviously, a passphrase stored in a file is of
5141 questionable security if other users can read this file. Don't use
5142 this option if you can avoid it.
5144 Note that since Version 2.0 this passphrase is only used if the
5145 option '--batch' has also been given. Since Version 2.1 the
5146 '--pinentry-mode' also needs to be set to 'loopback'.
5148 '--passphrase STRING'
5149 Use STRING as the passphrase. This can only be used if only one
5150 passphrase is supplied. Obviously, this is of very questionable
5151 security on a multi-user system. Don't use this option if you can
5154 Note that since Version 2.0 this passphrase is only used if the
5155 option '--batch' has also been given. Since Version 2.1 the
5156 '--pinentry-mode' also needs to be set to 'loopback'.
5158 '--pinentry-mode MODE'
5159 Set the pinentry mode to MODE. Allowed values for MODE are:
5161 Use the default of the agent, which is 'ask'.
5163 Force the use of the Pinentry.
5165 Emulate use of Pinentry's cancel button.
5167 Return a Pinentry error ("No Pinentry").
5169 Redirect Pinentry queries to the caller. Note that in
5170 contrast to Pinentry the user is not prompted again if he
5171 enters a bad password.
5174 Disable the passphrase cache used for symmetrical en- and
5175 decryption. This cache is based on the message specific salt value
5178 '--request-origin ORIGIN'
5179 Tell gpg to assume that the operation ultimately originated at
5180 ORIGIN. Depending on the origin certain restrictions are applied
5181 and the Pinentry may include an extra note on the origin.
5182 Supported values for ORIGIN are: 'local' which is the default,
5183 'remote' to indicate a remote origin or 'browser' for an operation
5184 requested by a web browser.
5187 This is a replacement for the deprecated shared-memory IPC mode.
5188 If this option is enabled, user input on questions is not expected
5189 from the TTY but from the given file descriptor. It should be used
5190 together with '--status-fd'. See the file doc/DETAILS in the
5191 source distribution for details on how to use it.
5193 '--command-file FILE'
5194 Same as '--command-fd', except the commands are read out of file
5197 '--allow-non-selfsigned-uid'
5198 '--no-allow-non-selfsigned-uid'
5199 Allow the import and use of keys with user IDs which are not
5200 self-signed. This is not recommended, as a non self-signed user ID
5201 is trivial to forge. '--no-allow-non-selfsigned-uid' disables.
5203 '--allow-freeform-uid'
5204 Disable all checks on the form of the user ID while generating a
5205 new one. This option should only be used in very special
5206 environments as it does not ensure the de-facto standard format of
5209 '--ignore-time-conflict'
5210 GnuPG normally checks that the timestamps associated with keys and
5211 signatures have plausible values. However, sometimes a signature
5212 seems to be older than the key due to clock problems. This option
5213 makes these checks just a warning. See also '--ignore-valid-from'
5214 for timestamp issues on subkeys.
5216 '--ignore-valid-from'
5217 GnuPG normally does not select and use subkeys created in the
5218 future. This option allows the use of such keys and thus exhibits
5219 the pre-1.0.7 behaviour. You should not use this option unless
5220 there is some clock problem. See also '--ignore-time-conflict' for
5221 timestamp issues with signatures.
5223 '--ignore-crc-error'
5224 The ASCII armor used by OpenPGP is protected by a CRC checksum
5225 against transmission errors. Occasionally the CRC gets mangled
5226 somewhere on the transmission channel but the actual content (which
5227 is protected by the OpenPGP protocol anyway) is still okay. This
5228 option allows GnuPG to ignore CRC errors.
5230 '--ignore-mdc-error'
5231 This option changes a MDC integrity protection failure into a
5232 warning. It is required to decrypt old messages which did not use
5233 an MDC. It may also be useful if a message is partially garbled,
5234 but it is necessary to get as much data as possible out of that
5235 garbled message. Be aware that a missing or failed MDC can be an
5236 indication of an attack. Use with great caution; see also option
5239 '--allow-weak-digest-algos'
5240 Signatures made with known-weak digest algorithms are normally
5241 rejected with an "invalid digest algorithm" message. This option
5242 allows the verification of signatures made with such weak
5243 algorithms. MD5 is the only digest algorithm considered weak by
5244 default. See also '--weak-digest' to reject other digest
5247 '--weak-digest NAME'
5248 Treat the specified digest algorithm as weak. Signatures made over
5249 weak digests algorithms are normally rejected. This option can be
5250 supplied multiple times if multiple algorithms should be considered
5251 weak. See also '--allow-weak-digest-algos' to disable rejection of
5252 weak digests. MD5 is always considered weak, and does not need to
5253 be listed explicitly.
5255 '--allow-weak-key-signatures'
5256 To avoid a minor risk of collision attacks on third-party key
5257 signatures made using SHA-1, those key signatures are considered
5258 invalid. This options allows to override this restriction.
5260 '--override-compliance-check'
5261 The signature verification only allows the use of keys suitable in
5262 the current compliance mode. If the compliance mode has been
5263 forced by a global option, there might be no way to check certain
5264 signature. This option allows to override this and prints an extra
5265 warning in such a case. This option is ignored in -batch mode so
5266 that no accidental unattended verification may happen.
5268 '--no-default-keyring'
5269 Do not add the default keyring to the list of keyrings. Note that
5270 GnuPG needs for almost all operations a keyring. Thus if you use
5271 this option and do not provide alternate keyrings via '--keyring',
5272 then GnuPG will still use the default keyring.
5275 Do not use any keyring at all. This overrides the default and all
5276 options which specify keyrings.
5279 Skip the signature verification step. This may be used to make the
5280 decryption faster if the signature verification is not needed.
5283 Print key listings delimited by colons (like '--with-colons') and
5284 print the public key data.
5288 Same as '--list-keys', but the signatures are listed too. This
5289 command has the same effect as using '--list-keys' with
5290 '--with-sig-list'. Note that in contrast to '--check-signatures'
5291 the key signatures are not verified. This command can be used to
5292 create a list of signing keys missing in the local keyring; for
5295 gpg --list-sigs --with-colons USERID | \
5296 awk -F: '$1=="sig" && $2=="?" {if($13){print $13}else{print $5}}'
5299 Changes the output of the list commands to work faster; this is
5300 achieved by leaving some parts empty. Some applications don't need
5301 the user ID and the trust information given in the listings. By
5302 using this options they can get a faster listing. The exact
5303 behaviour of this option may change in future versions. If you are
5304 missing some information, don't use this option.
5307 This is not for normal use. Use the source to see for what it
5311 This is not for normal use. Use the source to see for what it
5314 '--show-session-key'
5315 Display the session key used for one message. See
5316 '--override-session-key' for the counterpart of this option.
5318 We think that Key Escrow is a Bad Thing; however the user should
5319 have the freedom to decide whether to go to prison or to reveal the
5320 content of one specific message without compromising all messages
5321 ever encrypted for one secret key.
5323 You can also use this option if you receive an encrypted message
5324 which is abusive or offensive, to prove to the administrators of
5325 the messaging system that the ciphertext transmitted corresponds to
5326 an inappropriate plaintext so they can take action against the
5329 '--override-session-key STRING'
5330 '--override-session-key-fd FD'
5331 Don't use the public key but the session key STRING respective the
5332 session key taken from the first line read from file descriptor FD.
5333 The format of this string is the same as the one printed by
5334 '--show-session-key'. This option is normally not used but comes
5335 handy in case someone forces you to reveal the content of an
5336 encrypted message; using this option you can do this without
5337 handing out the secret key. Note that using
5338 '--override-session-key' may reveal the session key to all local
5339 users via the global process table. Often it is useful to combine
5340 this option with '--no-keyring'.
5343 '--no-ask-sig-expire'
5344 When making a data signature, prompt for an expiration time. If
5345 this option is not specified, the expiration time set via
5346 '--default-sig-expire' is used. '--no-ask-sig-expire' disables
5349 '--default-sig-expire'
5350 The default expiration time to use for signature expiration. Valid
5351 values are "0" for no expiration, a number followed by the letter d
5352 (for days), w (for weeks), m (for months), or y (for years) (for
5353 example "2m" for two months, or "5y" for five years), or an
5354 absolute date in the form YYYY-MM-DD. Defaults to "0".
5357 '--no-ask-cert-expire'
5358 When making a key signature, prompt for an expiration time. If
5359 this option is not specified, the expiration time set via
5360 '--default-cert-expire' is used. '--no-ask-cert-expire' disables
5363 '--default-cert-expire'
5364 The default expiration time to use for key signature expiration.
5365 Valid values are "0" for no expiration, a number followed by the
5366 letter d (for days), w (for weeks), m (for months), or y (for
5367 years) (for example "2m" for two months, or "5y" for five years),
5368 or an absolute date in the form YYYY-MM-DD. Defaults to "0".
5370 '--default-new-key-algo STRING'
5371 This option can be used to change the default algorithms for key
5372 generation. The STRING is similar to the arguments required for
5373 the command '--quick-add-key' but slightly different. For example
5374 the current default of '"rsa2048/cert,sign+rsa2048/encr"' (or
5375 '"rsa3072"') can be changed to the value of what we currently call
5376 future default, which is '"ed25519/cert,sign+cv25519/encr"'. You
5377 need to consult the source code to learn the details. Note that
5378 the advanced key generation commands can always be used to specify
5379 a key algorithm directly.
5382 This option modifies the behaviour of the commands
5383 '--quick-sign-key', '--quick-lsign-key', and the "sign"
5384 sub-commands of '--edit-key' by forcing the creation of a key
5385 signature, even if one already exists.
5388 This option is intended for use in the global config file to
5389 disallow the use of generate key commands. Those commands will
5390 then fail with the error code for Not Enabled.
5392 '--allow-secret-key-import'
5393 This is an obsolete option and is not used anywhere.
5395 '--allow-multiple-messages'
5396 '--no-allow-multiple-messages'
5397 Allow processing of multiple OpenPGP messages contained in a single
5398 file or stream. Some programs that call GPG are not prepared to
5399 deal with multiple messages being processed together, so this
5400 option defaults to no. Note that versions of GPG prior to 1.4.7
5401 always allowed multiple messages. Future versions of GnUPG will
5404 Warning: Do not use this option unless you need it as a temporary
5407 '--enable-special-filenames'
5408 This option enables a mode in which filenames of the form '-&n',
5409 where n is a non-negative decimal number, refer to the file
5410 descriptor n and not to a file with that name.
5412 '--no-expensive-trust-checks'
5413 Experimental use only.
5415 '--preserve-permissions'
5416 Don't change the permissions of a secret keyring back to user
5417 read/write only. Use this option only if you really know what you
5420 '--default-preference-list STRING'
5421 Set the list of default preferences to STRING. This preference
5422 list is used for new keys and becomes the default for "setpref" in
5425 '--default-keyserver-url NAME'
5426 Set the default keyserver URL to NAME. This keyserver will be used
5427 as the keyserver URL when writing a new self-signature on a key,
5428 which includes key generation and changing preferences.
5431 Display various internal configuration parameters of GnuPG. This
5432 option is intended for external programs that call GnuPG to perform
5433 tasks, and is thus not generally useful. See the file
5434 'doc/DETAILS' in the source distribution for the details of which
5435 configuration items may be listed. '--list-config' is only usable
5436 with '--with-colons' set.
5438 '--list-gcrypt-config'
5439 Display various internal configuration parameters of Libgcrypt.
5442 This command is similar to '--list-config' but in general only
5443 internally used by the 'gpgconf' tool.
5446 This is more or less dummy action. However it parses the
5447 configuration file and returns with failure if the configuration
5448 file would prevent 'gpg' from startup. Thus it may be used to run
5449 a syntax check on the configuration file.
5451 ---------- Footnotes ----------
5453 (1) Using a little social engineering anyone who is able to decrypt
5454 the message can check whether one of the other recipients is the one he
5458 File: gnupg.info, Node: Deprecated Options, Prev: GPG Esoteric Options, Up: GPG Options
5460 4.2.7 Deprecated options
5461 ------------------------
5465 Causes '--list-keys', '--list-signatures', '--list-public-keys',
5466 '--list-secret-keys', and verifying a signature to also display the
5467 photo ID attached to the key, if any. See also '--photo-viewer'.
5468 These options are deprecated. Use '--list-options
5469 [no-]show-photos' and/or '--verify-options [no-]show-photos'
5473 Display the keyring name at the head of key listings to show which
5474 keyring a given key resides on. This option is deprecated: use
5475 '--list-options [no-]show-keyring' instead.
5478 Identical to '--trust-model always'. This option is deprecated.
5481 '--no-show-notation'
5482 Show signature notations in the '--list-signatures' or
5483 '--check-signatures' listings as well as when verifying a signature
5484 with a notation in it. These options are deprecated. Use
5485 '--list-options [no-]show-notation' and/or '--verify-options
5486 [no-]show-notation' instead.
5489 '--no-show-policy-url'
5490 Show policy URLs in the '--list-signatures' or '--check-signatures'
5491 listings as well as when verifying a signature with a policy URL in
5492 it. These options are deprecated. Use '--list-options
5493 [no-]show-policy-url' and/or '--verify-options
5494 [no-]show-policy-url' instead.
5497 File: gnupg.info, Node: GPG Configuration, Next: GPG Examples, Prev: GPG Options, Up: Invoking GPG
5499 4.3 Configuration files
5500 =======================
5502 There are a few configuration files to control certain aspects of
5503 'gpg''s operation. Unless noted, they are expected in the current home
5504 directory (*note option --homedir::).
5507 This is the standard configuration file read by 'gpg' on startup.
5508 It may contain any valid long option; the leading two dashes may
5509 not be entered and the option may not be abbreviated. This default
5510 name may be changed on the command line (*note gpg-option
5511 --options::). You should backup this file.
5513 Note that on larger installations, it is useful to put predefined
5514 files into the directory '/etc/skel/.gnupg' so that newly created users
5515 start up with a working configuration. For existing users a small
5516 helper script is provided to create these files (*note addgnupghome::).
5518 For internal purposes 'gpg' creates and maintains a few other files;
5519 They all live in the current home directory (*note option --homedir::).
5520 Only the 'gpg' program may modify these files.
5523 This is the default home directory which is used if neither the
5524 environment variable 'GNUPGHOME' nor the option '--homedir' is
5527 '~/.gnupg/pubring.gpg'
5528 The public keyring using a legacy format. You should backup this
5531 If this file is not available, 'gpg' defaults to the new keybox
5532 format and creates a file 'pubring.kbx' unless that file already
5533 exists in which case that file will also be used for OpenPGP keys.
5535 Note that in the case that both files, 'pubring.gpg' and
5536 'pubring.kbx' exists but the latter has no OpenPGP keys, the legacy
5537 file 'pubring.gpg' will be used. Take care: GnuPG versions before
5538 2.1 will always use the file 'pubring.gpg' because they do not know
5539 about the new keybox format. In the case that you have to use
5540 GnuPG 1.4 to decrypt archived data you should keep this file.
5542 '~/.gnupg/pubring.gpg.lock'
5543 The lock file for the public keyring.
5545 '~/.gnupg/pubring.kbx'
5546 The public keyring using the new keybox format. This file is
5547 shared with 'gpgsm'. You should backup this file. See above for
5548 the relation between this file and it predecessor.
5550 To convert an existing 'pubring.gpg' file to the keybox format, you
5551 first backup the ownertrust values, then rename 'pubring.gpg' to
5552 'publickeys.backup', so it won’t be recognized by any GnuPG
5553 version, run import, and finally restore the ownertrust values:
5556 $ gpg --export-ownertrust >otrust.lst
5557 $ mv pubring.gpg publickeys.backup
5558 $ gpg --import-options restore --import publickeys.backups
5559 $ gpg --import-ownertrust otrust.lst
5561 '~/.gnupg/pubring.kbx.lock'
5562 The lock file for 'pubring.kbx'.
5564 '~/.gnupg/secring.gpg'
5565 The legacy secret keyring as used by GnuPG versions before 2.1. It
5566 is not used by GnuPG 2.1 and later. You may want to keep it in
5567 case you have to use GnuPG 1.4 to decrypt archived data.
5569 '~/.gnupg/secring.gpg.lock'
5570 The lock file for the legacy secret keyring.
5572 '~/.gnupg/.gpg-v21-migrated'
5573 File indicating that a migration to GnuPG 2.1 has been done.
5575 '~/.gnupg/trustdb.gpg'
5576 The trust database. There is no need to backup this file; it is
5577 better to backup the ownertrust values (*note option
5578 --export-ownertrust::).
5580 '~/.gnupg/trustdb.gpg.lock'
5581 The lock file for the trust database.
5583 '~/.gnupg/random_seed'
5584 A file used to preserve the state of the internal random pool.
5586 '~/.gnupg/openpgp-revocs.d/'
5587 This is the directory where gpg stores pre-generated revocation
5588 certificates. The file name corresponds to the OpenPGP fingerprint
5589 of the respective key. It is suggested to backup those
5590 certificates and if the primary private key is not stored on the
5591 disk to move them to an external storage device. Anyone who can
5592 access theses files is able to revoke the corresponding key. You
5593 may want to print them out. You should backup all files in this
5594 directory and take care to keep this backup closed away.
5596 Operation is further controlled by a few environment variables:
5599 Used to locate the default home directory.
5602 If set directory used instead of "~/.gnupg".
5605 This variable is obsolete; it was used by GnuPG versions before
5609 This value is passed via gpg-agent to pinentry. It is useful to
5610 convey extra information to a custom pinentry.
5614 Used to size some displays to the full size of the screen.
5617 Apart from its use by GNU, it is used in the W32 version to
5618 override the language selection done through the Registry. If used
5619 and set to a valid and available language name (LANGID), the file
5620 with the translation is loaded from 'GPGDIR/gnupg.nls/LANGID.mo'.
5621 Here GPGDIR is the directory out of which the gpg binary has been
5622 loaded. If it can't be loaded the Registry is tried and as last
5623 resort the native Windows locale system is used.
5626 This variable is only used by the regression test suite as a helper
5627 under operating systems without proper support to figure out the
5628 name of a process' text file.
5630 GNUPG_EXEC_DEBUG_FLAGS
5631 This variable allows to enable diagnostics for process management.
5632 A numeric decimal value is expected. Bit 0 enables general
5633 diagnostics, bit 1 enables certain warnings on Windows.
5635 When calling the gpg-agent component 'gpg' sends a set of environment
5636 variables to gpg-agent. The names of these variables can be listed
5639 gpg-connect-agent 'getinfo std_env_names' /bye | awk '$1=="D" {print $2}'
5642 File: gnupg.info, Node: GPG Examples, Next: Unattended Usage of GPG, Prev: GPG Configuration, Up: Invoking GPG
5647 gpg -se -r 'Bob' 'file'
5648 sign and encrypt for user Bob
5650 gpg -clear-sign 'file'
5651 make a cleartext signature
5654 make a detached signature
5656 gpg -u 0x12345678 -sb 'file'
5657 make a detached signature with the key 0x12345678
5659 gpg -list-keys 'user_ID'
5662 gpg -fingerprint 'user_ID'
5665 gpg -verify 'pgpfile'
5666 gpg -verify 'sigfile' ['datafile']
5667 Verify the signature of the file but do not output the data unless
5668 requested. The second form is used for detached signatures, where
5669 'sigfile' is the detached signature (either ASCII armored or
5670 binary) and 'datafile' are the signed data; if this is not given,
5671 the name of the file holding the signed data is constructed by
5672 cutting off the extension (".asc" or ".sig") of 'sigfile' or by
5673 asking the user for the filename. If the option '--output' is also
5674 used the signed data is written to the file specified by that
5675 option; use '-' to write the signed data to stdout.
5680 The options '--import-filter' and '--export-filter' use expressions with
5681 this syntax (square brackets indicate an optional part and curly braces
5682 a repetition, white space between the elements are allowed):
5684 [lc] {[{flag}] PROPNAME op VALUE [lc]}
5686 The name of a property (PROPNAME) may only consist of letters, digits
5687 and underscores. The description for the filter type describes which
5688 properties are defined. If an undefined property is used it evaluates
5689 to the empty string. Unless otherwise noted, the VALUE must always be
5690 given and may not be the empty string. No quoting is defined for the
5691 value, thus the value may not contain the strings '&&' or '||', which
5692 are used as logical connection operators. The flag '--' can be used to
5693 remove this restriction.
5695 Numerical values are computed as long int; standard C notation
5696 applies. LC is the logical connection operator; either '&&' for a
5697 conjunction or '||' for a disjunction. A conjunction is assumed at the
5698 begin of an expression. Conjunctions have higher precedence than
5699 disjunctions. If VALUE starts with one of the characters used in any OP
5700 a space after the OP is required.
5702 The supported operators (OP) are:
5705 Substring must match.
5708 Substring must not match.
5711 The full string must match.
5714 The full string must not match.
5717 The numerical value must match.
5720 The numerical value must not match.
5723 The numerical value of the field must be LE than the value.
5726 The numerical value of the field must be LT than the value.
5729 The numerical value of the field must be GT than the value.
5732 The numerical value of the field must be GE than the value.
5735 The string value of the field must be less or equal than the value.
5738 The string value of the field must be less than the value.
5741 The string value of the field must be greater than the value.
5744 The string value of the field must be greater or equal than the
5748 True if value is not empty (no value allowed).
5751 True if value is empty (no value allowed).
5754 Alias for "PROPNAME != 0" (no value allowed).
5757 Alias for "PROPNAME == 0" (no value allowed).
5759 Values for FLAG must be space separated. The supported flags are:
5762 VALUE spans to the end of the expression.
5764 The string match in this part is done case-sensitive.
5766 Leading and trailing spaces are not removed from VALUE. The
5767 optional single space after OP is here required.
5769 The filter options concatenate several specifications for a filter of
5770 the same type. For example the four options in this example:
5772 --import-filter keep-uid="uid =~ Alfa"
5773 --import-filter keep-uid="&& uid !~ Test"
5774 --import-filter keep-uid="|| uid =~ Alpha"
5775 --import-filter keep-uid="uid !~ Test"
5777 which is equivalent to
5780 keep-uid="uid =~ Alfa" && uid !~ Test" || uid =~ Alpha" && "uid !~ Test"
5782 imports only the user ids of a key containing the strings "Alfa" or
5783 "Alpha" but not the string "test".
5788 The program returns 0 if there are no severe errors, 1 if at least a
5789 signature was bad, and other error codes for fatal errors.
5791 Note that signature verification requires exact knowledge of what has
5792 been signed and by whom it has beensigned. Using only the return code
5793 is thus not an appropriate way to verify a signature by a script.
5794 Either make proper use or the status codes or use the 'gpgv' tool which
5795 has been designed to make signature verification easy for scripts.
5800 Use a good password for your user account and make sure that all
5801 security issues are always fixed on your machine. Also employ diligent
5802 physical protection to your machine. Consider to use a good passphrase
5803 as a last resort protection to your secret key in the case your machine
5804 gets stolen. It is important that your secret key is never leaked.
5805 Using an easy to carry around token or smartcard with the secret key is
5808 If you are going to verify detached signatures, make sure that the
5809 program knows about it; either give both filenames on the command line
5810 or use '-' to specify STDIN.
5812 For scripted or other unattended use of 'gpg' make sure to use the
5813 machine-parseable interface and not the default interface which is
5814 intended for direct use by humans. The machine-parseable interface
5815 provides a stable and well documented API independent of the locale or
5816 future changes of 'gpg'. To enable this interface use the options
5817 '--with-colons' and '--status-fd'. For certain operations the option
5818 '--command-fd' may come handy too. See this man page and the file
5819 'DETAILS' for the specification of the interface. Note that the GnuPG
5820 "info" pages as well as the PDF version of the GnuPG manual features a
5821 chapter on unattended use of GnuPG. As an alternative the library
5822 'GPGME' can be used as a high-level abstraction on top of that
5825 INTEROPERABILITY WITH OTHER OPENPGP PROGRAMS
5826 ********************************************
5828 GnuPG tries to be a very flexible implementation of the OpenPGP
5829 standard. In particular, GnuPG implements many of the optional parts of
5830 the standard, such as the SHA-512 hash, and the ZLIB and BZIP2
5831 compression algorithms. It is important to be aware that not all
5832 OpenPGP programs implement these optional algorithms and that by forcing
5833 their use via the '--cipher-algo', '--digest-algo',
5834 '--cert-digest-algo', or '--compress-algo' options in GnuPG, it is
5835 possible to create a perfectly valid OpenPGP message, but one that
5836 cannot be read by the intended recipient.
5838 There are dozens of variations of OpenPGP programs available, and
5839 each supports a slightly different subset of these optional algorithms.
5840 For example, until recently, no (unhacked) version of PGP supported the
5841 BLOWFISH cipher algorithm. A message using BLOWFISH simply could not be
5842 read by a PGP user. By default, GnuPG uses the standard OpenPGP
5843 preferences system that will always do the right thing and create
5844 messages that are usable by all recipients, regardless of which OpenPGP
5845 program they use. Only override this safe default if you really know
5848 If you absolutely must override the safe default, or if the
5849 preferences on a given key are invalid for some reason, you are far
5850 better off using the '--pgp6', '--pgp7', or '--pgp8' options. These
5851 options are safe as they do not force any particular algorithms in
5852 violation of OpenPGP, but rather reduce the available algorithms to a
5858 On older systems this program should be installed as setuid(root). This
5859 is necessary to lock memory pages. Locking memory pages prevents the
5860 operating system from writing memory pages (which may contain
5861 passphrases or other sensitive material) to disk. If you get no warning
5862 message about insecure memory your operating system supports locking
5863 without being root. The program drops root privileges as soon as locked
5864 memory is allocated.
5866 Note also that some systems (especially laptops) have the ability to
5867 "suspend to disk" (also known as "safe sleep" or "hibernate"). This
5868 writes all memory to disk before going into a low power or even powered
5869 off mode. Unless measures are taken in the operating system to protect
5870 the saved memory, passphrases or other sensitive material may be
5871 recoverable from it later.
5873 Before you report a bug you should first search the mailing list
5874 archives for similar problems and second check whether such a bug has
5875 already been reported to our bug tracker at <https://bugs.gnupg.org>.
5878 File: gnupg.info, Node: Unattended Usage of GPG, Prev: GPG Examples, Up: Invoking GPG
5880 4.5 Unattended Usage
5881 ====================
5883 'gpg' is often used as a backend engine by other software. To help with
5884 this a machine interface has been defined to have an unambiguous way to
5885 do this. The options '--status-fd' and '--batch' are almost always
5890 * Programmatic use of GnuPG:: Programmatic use of GnuPG
5891 * Ephemeral home directories:: Ephemeral home directories
5892 * The quick key manipulation interface:: The quick key manipulation interface
5893 * Unattended GPG key generation:: Unattended key generation
5896 File: gnupg.info, Node: Programmatic use of GnuPG, Next: Ephemeral home directories, Up: Unattended Usage of GPG
5898 4.5.1 Programmatic use of GnuPG
5899 -------------------------------
5901 Please consider using GPGME instead of calling 'gpg' directly. GPGME
5902 offers a stable, backend-independent interface for many cryptographic
5903 operations. It supports OpenPGP and S/MIME, and also allows interaction
5904 with various GnuPG components.
5906 GPGME provides a C-API, and comes with bindings for C++, Qt, and
5907 Python. Bindings for other languages are available.
5910 File: gnupg.info, Node: Ephemeral home directories, Next: The quick key manipulation interface, Prev: Programmatic use of GnuPG, Up: Unattended Usage of GPG
5912 4.5.2 Ephemeral home directories
5913 --------------------------------
5915 Sometimes you want to contain effects of some operation, for example you
5916 want to import a key to inspect it, but you do not want this key to be
5917 added to your keyring. In earlier versions of GnuPG, it was possible to
5918 specify alternate keyring files for both public and secret keys. In
5919 modern GnuPG versions, however, we changed how secret keys are stored in
5920 order to better protect secret key material, and it was not possible to
5921 preserve this interface.
5923 The preferred way to do this is to use ephemeral home directories.
5924 This technique works across all versions of GnuPG.
5926 Create a temporary directory, create (or copy) a configuration that
5927 meets your needs, make 'gpg' use this directory either using the
5928 environment variable GNUPGHOME, or the option '--homedir'. GPGME
5929 supports this too on a per-context basis, by modifying the engine info
5930 of contexts. Now execute whatever operation you like, import and export
5931 key material as necessary. Once finished, you can delete the directory.
5932 All GnuPG backend services that were started will detect this and shut
5936 File: gnupg.info, Node: The quick key manipulation interface, Next: Unattended GPG key generation, Prev: Ephemeral home directories, Up: Unattended Usage of GPG
5938 4.5.3 The quick key manipulation interface
5939 ------------------------------------------
5941 Recent versions of GnuPG have an interface to manipulate keys without
5942 using the interactive command '--edit-key'. This interface was added
5943 mainly for the benefit of GPGME (please consider using GPGME, see the
5944 manual subsection "Programmatic use of GnuPG"). This interface is
5945 described in the subsection "How to manage your keys".
5948 File: gnupg.info, Node: Unattended GPG key generation, Prev: The quick key manipulation interface, Up: Unattended Usage of GPG
5950 4.5.4 Unattended key generation
5951 -------------------------------
5953 The command '--generate-key' may be used along with the option '--batch'
5954 for unattended key generation. This is the most flexible way of
5955 generating keys, but it is also the most complex one. Consider using
5956 the quick key manipulation interface described in the previous
5957 subsection "The quick key manipulation interface".
5959 The parameters for the key are either read from stdin or given as a
5960 file on the command line. The format of the parameter file is as
5963 * Text only, line length is limited to about 1000 characters.
5964 * UTF-8 encoding must be used to specify non-ASCII characters.
5965 * Empty lines are ignored.
5966 * Leading and trailing white space is ignored.
5967 * A hash sign as the first non white space character indicates a
5969 * Control statements are indicated by a leading percent sign, the
5970 arguments are separated by white space from the keyword.
5971 * Parameters are specified by a keyword, followed by a colon.
5972 Arguments are separated by white space.
5973 * The first parameter must be 'Key-Type'; control statements may be
5975 * The order of the parameters does not matter except for 'Key-Type'
5976 which must be the first parameter. The parameters are only used
5977 for the generated keyblock (primary and subkeys); parameters from
5978 previous sets are not used. Some syntactically checks may be
5980 * Key generation takes place when either the end of the parameter
5981 file is reached, the next 'Key-Type' parameter is encountered or at
5982 the control statement '%commit' is encountered.
5987 Print TEXT as diagnostic.
5990 Suppress actual key generation (useful for syntax checking).
5993 Perform the key generation. Note that an implicit commit is done
5994 at the next Key-Type parameter.
5997 Do not write the key to the default or commandline given keyring
5998 but to FILENAME. This must be given before the first commit to
5999 take place, duplicate specification of the same filename is
6000 ignored, the last filename before a commit is used. The filename
6001 is used until a new filename is used (at commit points) and all
6002 keys are written to that file. If a new filename is given, this
6003 file is created (and overwrites an existing one).
6005 See the previous subsection "Ephemeral home directories" for a more
6006 robust way to contain side-effects.
6009 This option is a no-op for GnuPG 2.1 and later.
6011 See the previous subsection "Ephemeral home directories".
6015 This option is a no-op for GnuPG 2.1 and later.
6018 Using this option allows the creation of keys without any
6019 passphrase protection. This option is mainly intended for
6023 If given the keys are created using a faster and a somewhat less
6024 secure random number generator. This option may be used for keys
6025 which are only used for a short time and do not require full
6026 cryptographic strength. It takes only effect if used together with
6027 the control statement '%no-protection'.
6032 Starts a new parameter block by giving the type of the primary key.
6033 The algorithm must be capable of signing. This is a required
6034 parameter. ALGO may either be an OpenPGP algorithm number or a
6035 string with the algorithm name. The special value 'default' may be
6036 used for ALGO to create the default key type; in this case a
6037 'Key-Usage' shall not be given and 'default' also be used for
6041 The requested length of the generated key in bits. The default is
6042 returned by running the command 'gpg --gpgconf-list'. For ECC keys
6043 this parameter is ignored.
6046 The requested elliptic curve of the generated key. This is a
6047 required parameter for ECC keys. It is ignored for non-ECC keys.
6050 This is optional and used to generate a CSR or certificate for an
6051 already existing key. Key-Length will be ignored when given.
6053 Key-Usage: USAGE-LIST
6054 Space or comma delimited list of key usages. Allowed values are
6055 'encrypt', 'sign', and 'auth'. This is used to generate the key
6056 flags. Please make sure that the algorithm is capable of this
6057 usage. Note that OpenPGP requires that all primary keys are
6058 capable of certification, so no matter what usage is given here,
6059 the 'cert' flag will be on. If no 'Key-Usage' is specified and the
6060 'Key-Type' is not 'default', all allowed usages for that particular
6061 algorithm are used; if it is not given but 'default' is used the
6062 usage will be 'sign'.
6065 This generates a secondary key (subkey). Currently only one subkey
6066 can be handled. See also 'Key-Type' above.
6068 Subkey-Length: NBITS
6069 Length of the secondary key (subkey) in bits. The default is
6070 returned by running the command 'gpg --gpgconf-list'.
6073 Key curve for a subkey; similar to 'Key-Curve'.
6075 Subkey-Usage: USAGE-LIST
6076 Key usage lists for a subkey; similar to 'Key-Usage'.
6079 If you want to specify a passphrase for the secret key, enter it
6080 here. Default is to use the Pinentry dialog to ask for a
6084 Name-Comment: COMMENT
6086 The three parts of a user name. Remember to use UTF-8 encoding
6087 here. If you don't give any of them, no user ID is created.
6089 Expire-Date: ISO-DATE|(NUMBER[d|w|m|y])
6090 Set the expiration date for the key (and the subkey). It may
6091 either be entered in ISO date format (e.g. "20000815T145012") or
6092 as number of days, weeks, month or years after the creation date.
6093 The special notation "seconds=N" is also allowed to specify a
6094 number of seconds since creation. Without a letter days are
6095 assumed. Note that there is no check done on the overflow of the
6096 type used by OpenPGP for timestamps. Thus you better make sure
6097 that the given value make sense. Although OpenPGP works with time
6098 intervals, GnuPG uses an absolute value internally and thus the
6099 last year we can represent is 2105.
6101 Creation-Date: ISO-DATE
6102 Set the creation date of the key as stored in the key information
6103 and which is also part of the fingerprint calculation. Either a
6104 date like "1986-04-26" or a full timestamp like "19860426T042640"
6105 may be used. The time is considered to be UTC. The special
6106 notation "seconds=N" may be used to directly specify a the number
6107 of seconds since Epoch (Unix time). If it is not given the current
6111 Set the cipher, hash, and compression preference values for this
6112 key. This expects the same type of string as the sub-command
6113 'setpref' in the '--edit-key' menu.
6115 Revoker: ALGO:FPR [sensitive]
6116 Add a designated revoker to the generated key. Algo is the public
6117 key algorithm of the designated revoker (i.e. RSA=1, DSA=17, etc.)
6118 FPR is the fingerprint of the designated revoker. The optional
6119 'sensitive' flag marks the designated revoker as sensitive
6120 information. Only v4 keys may be designated revokers.
6123 This is an optional parameter that specifies the preferred
6124 keyserver URL for the key.
6127 This is an optional parameter only used with the status lines
6128 KEY_CREATED and KEY_NOT_CREATED. STRING may be up to 100 characters
6129 and should not contain spaces. It is useful for batch key
6130 generation to associate a key parameter block with a status line.
6132 Here is an example on how to create a key in an ephemeral home
6134 $ export GNUPGHOME="$(mktemp -d)"
6136 %echo Generating a basic OpenPGP key
6141 Name-Real: Joe Tester
6142 Name-Comment: with stupid passphrase
6143 Name-Email: joe@foo.bar
6146 # Do a commit here, so that we can later print "done" :-)
6150 $ gpg --batch --generate-key foo
6152 $ gpg --list-secret-keys
6153 /tmp/tmp.0NQxB74PEf/pubring.kbx
6154 -------------------------------
6155 sec dsa1024 2016-12-16 [SCA]
6156 768E895903FC1C44045C8CB95EEBDB71E9E849D0
6157 uid [ultimate] Joe Tester (with stupid passphrase) <joe@foo.bar>
6158 ssb elg1024 2016-12-16 [E]
6160 If you want to create a key with the default algorithms you would use
6162 %echo Generating a default key
6164 Subkey-Type: default
6165 Name-Real: Joe Tester
6166 Name-Comment: with stupid passphrase
6167 Name-Email: joe@foo.bar
6170 # Do a commit here, so that we can later print "done" :-)
6175 File: gnupg.info, Node: Invoking GPGSM, Next: Invoking SCDAEMON, Prev: Invoking GPG, Up: Top
6180 'gpgsm' is a tool similar to 'gpg' to provide digital encryption and
6181 signing services on X.509 certificates and the CMS protocol. It is
6182 mainly used as a backend for S/MIME mail processing. 'gpgsm' includes a
6183 full featured certificate management and complies with all rules defined
6184 for the German Sphinx project.
6186 *Note Option Index::, for an index to 'GPGSM''s commands and options.
6190 * GPGSM Commands:: List of all commands.
6191 * GPGSM Options:: List of all options.
6192 * GPGSM Configuration:: Configuration files.
6193 * GPGSM Examples:: Some usage examples.
6195 Developer information:
6196 * Unattended Usage:: Using 'gpgsm' from other programs.
6197 * GPGSM Protocol:: The protocol the server mode uses.
6200 File: gnupg.info, Node: GPGSM Commands, Next: GPGSM Options, Up: Invoking GPGSM
6205 Commands are not distinguished from options except for the fact that
6206 only one command is allowed.
6210 * General GPGSM Commands:: Commands not specific to the functionality.
6211 * Operational GPGSM Commands:: Commands to select the type of operation.
6212 * Certificate Management:: How to manage certificates.
6215 File: gnupg.info, Node: General GPGSM Commands, Next: Operational GPGSM Commands, Up: GPGSM Commands
6217 5.1.1 Commands not specific to the function
6218 -------------------------------------------
6221 Print the program version and licensing information. Note that you
6222 cannot abbreviate this command.
6225 Print a usage message summarizing the most useful command-line
6226 options. Note that you cannot abbreviate this command.
6229 Print warranty information. Note that you cannot abbreviate this
6233 Print a list of all available options and commands. Note that you
6234 cannot abbreviate this command.
6237 File: gnupg.info, Node: Operational GPGSM Commands, Next: Certificate Management, Prev: General GPGSM Commands, Up: GPGSM Commands
6239 5.1.2 Commands to select the type of operation
6240 ----------------------------------------------
6243 Perform an encryption. The keys the data is encrypted to must be
6244 set using the option '--recipient'.
6247 Perform a decryption; the type of input is automatically
6248 determined. It may either be in binary form or PEM encoded;
6249 automatic determination of base-64 encoding is not done.
6252 Create a digital signature. The key used is either the fist one
6253 found in the keybox or those set with the '--local-user' option.
6256 Check a signature file for validity. Depending on the arguments a
6257 detached signature may also be checked.
6260 Run in server mode and wait for commands on the 'stdin'.
6262 '--call-dirmngr COMMAND [ARGS]'
6263 Behave as a Dirmngr client issuing the request COMMAND with the
6264 optional list of ARGS. The output of the Dirmngr is printed
6265 stdout. Please note that file names given as arguments should have
6266 an absolute file name (i.e. commencing with '/') because they are
6267 passed verbatim to the Dirmngr and the working directory of the
6268 Dirmngr might not be the same as the one of this client. Currently
6269 it is not possible to pass data via stdin to the Dirmngr. COMMAND
6270 should not contain spaces.
6272 This is command is required for certain maintaining tasks of the
6273 dirmngr where a dirmngr must be able to call back to 'gpgsm'. See
6274 the Dirmngr manual for details.
6276 '--call-protect-tool ARGUMENTS'
6277 Certain maintenance operations are done by an external program call
6278 'gpg-protect-tool'; this is usually not installed in a directory
6279 listed in the PATH variable. This command provides a simple
6280 wrapper to access this tool. ARGUMENTS are passed verbatim to this
6281 command; use '--help' to get a list of supported operations.
6284 File: gnupg.info, Node: Certificate Management, Prev: Operational GPGSM Commands, Up: GPGSM Commands
6286 5.1.3 How to manage the certificates and keys
6287 ---------------------------------------------
6291 This command allows the creation of a certificate signing request
6292 or a self-signed certificate. It is commonly used along with the
6293 '--output' option to save the created CSR or certificate into a
6294 file. If used with the '--batch' a parameter file is used to
6295 create the CSR or certificate and it is further possible to create
6296 non-self-signed certificates.
6300 List all available certificates stored in the local key database.
6301 Note that the displayed data might be reformatted for better human
6302 readability and illegal characters are replaced by safe
6305 '--list-secret-keys'
6307 List all available certificates for which a corresponding a secret
6310 '--list-external-keys PATTERN'
6311 List certificates matching PATTERN using an external server. This
6312 utilizes the 'dirmngr' service.
6315 Same as '--list-keys' but also prints all keys making up the chain.
6319 List all available certificates stored in the local key database
6320 using a format useful mainly for debugging.
6323 Same as '--dump-keys' but also prints all keys making up the chain.
6325 '--dump-secret-keys'
6326 List all available certificates for which a corresponding a secret
6327 key is available using a format useful mainly for debugging.
6329 '--dump-external-keys PATTERN'
6330 List certificates matching PATTERN using an external server. This
6331 utilizes the 'dirmngr' service. It uses a format useful mainly for
6334 '--keydb-clear-some-cert-flags'
6335 This is a debugging aid to reset certain flags in the key database
6336 which are used to cache certain certificate stati. It is
6337 especially useful if a bad CRL or a weird running OCSP responder
6338 did accidentally revoke certificate. There is no security issue
6339 with this command because 'gpgsm' always make sure that the
6340 validity of a certificate is checked right before it is used.
6342 '--delete-keys PATTERN'
6343 Delete the keys matching PATTERN. Note that there is no command to
6344 delete the secret part of the key directly. In case you need to do
6345 this, you should run the command 'gpgsm --dump-secret-keys KEYID'
6346 before you delete the key, copy the string of hex-digits in the
6347 "keygrip" line and delete the file consisting of these hex-digits
6348 and the suffix '.key' from the 'private-keys-v1.d' directory below
6349 our GnuPG home directory (usually '~/.gnupg').
6351 '--export [PATTERN]'
6352 Export all certificates stored in the Keybox or those specified by
6353 the optional PATTERN. Those pattern consist of a list of user ids
6354 (*note how-to-specify-a-user-id::). When used along with the
6355 '--armor' option a few informational lines are prepended before
6356 each block. There is one limitation: As there is no commonly
6357 agreed upon way to pack more than one certificate into an ASN.1
6358 structure, the binary export (i.e. without using 'armor') works
6359 only for the export of one certificate. Thus it is required to
6360 specify a PATTERN which yields exactly one certificate. Ephemeral
6361 certificate are only exported if all PATTERN are given as
6362 fingerprints or keygrips.
6364 '--export-secret-key-p12 KEY-ID'
6365 Export the private key and the certificate identified by KEY-ID
6366 using the PKCS#12 format. When used with the '--armor' option a
6367 few informational lines are prepended to the output. Note, that
6368 the PKCS#12 format is not very secure and proper transport security
6369 should be used to convey the exported key. (*Note option
6372 '--export-secret-key-p8 KEY-ID'
6373 '--export-secret-key-raw KEY-ID'
6374 Export the private key of the certificate identified by KEY-ID with
6375 any encryption stripped. The '...-raw' command exports in PKCS#1
6376 format; the '...-p8' command exports in PKCS#8 format. When used
6377 with the '--armor' option a few informational lines are prepended
6378 to the output. These commands are useful to prepare a key for use
6382 Import the certificates from the PEM or binary encoded files as
6383 well as from signed-only messages. This command may also be used
6384 to import a secret key from a PKCS#12 file.
6387 Read information about the private keys from the smartcard and
6388 import the certificates from there. This command utilizes the
6389 'gpg-agent' and in turn the 'scdaemon'.
6391 '--change-passphrase USER_ID'
6393 Change the passphrase of the private key belonging to the
6394 certificate specified as USER_ID. Note, that changing the
6395 passphrase/PIN of a smartcard is not yet supported.
6398 File: gnupg.info, Node: GPGSM Options, Next: GPGSM Configuration, Prev: GPGSM Commands, Up: Invoking GPGSM
6403 'GPGSM' features a bunch of options to control the exact behaviour and
6404 to change the default configuration.
6408 * Configuration Options:: How to change the configuration.
6409 * Certificate Options:: Certificate related options.
6410 * Input and Output:: Input and Output.
6411 * CMS Options:: How to change how the CMS is created.
6412 * Esoteric Options:: Doing things one usually do not want to do.
6415 File: gnupg.info, Node: Configuration Options, Next: Certificate Options, Up: GPGSM Options
6417 5.2.1 How to change the configuration
6418 -------------------------------------
6420 These options are used to change the configuration and are usually found
6424 Reads configuration from FILE instead of from the default per-user
6425 configuration file. The default configuration file is named
6426 'gpgsm.conf' and expected in the '.gnupg' directory directly below
6427 the home directory of the user.
6430 Set the name of the home directory to DIR. If this option is not
6431 used, the home directory defaults to '~/.gnupg'. It is only
6432 recognized when given on the command line. It also overrides any
6433 home directory stated through the environment variable 'GNUPGHOME'
6434 or (on Windows systems) by means of the Registry entry
6435 HKCU\SOFTWARE\GNU\GNUPG:HOMEDIR.
6437 On Windows systems it is possible to install GnuPG as a portable
6438 application. In this case only this command line option is
6439 considered, all other ways to set a home directory are ignored.
6441 To install GnuPG as a portable application under Windows, create an
6442 empty file named 'gpgconf.ctl' in the same directory as the tool
6443 'gpgconf.exe'. The root of the installation is then that
6444 directory; or, if 'gpgconf.exe' has been installed directly below a
6445 directory named 'bin', its parent directory. You also need to make
6446 sure that the following directories exist and are writable:
6447 'ROOT/home' for the GnuPG home and 'ROOT/usr/local/var/cache/gnupg'
6448 for internal cache files.
6452 Outputs additional information while running. You can increase the
6453 verbosity by giving several verbose commands to 'gpgsm', such as
6456 '--keyserver STRING'
6457 This is a deprecated option. It was used to add an LDAP server to
6458 use for X.509 certificate and CRL lookup. The alias '--ldapserver'
6459 existed from version 2.2.28 to 2.2.33 but is now entirely ignored.
6461 LDAP servers must be given in the configuration for 'dirmngr'.
6463 '--policy-file FILENAME'
6464 Change the default name of the policy file to FILENAME.
6466 '--agent-program FILE'
6467 Specify an agent program to be used for secret key operations. The
6468 default value is determined by running the command 'gpgconf'. Note
6469 that the pipe symbol ('|') is used for a regression test suite hack
6470 and may thus not be used in the file name.
6472 '--dirmngr-program FILE'
6473 Specify a dirmngr program to be used for CRL checks. The default
6474 value is '/usr/local/bin/dirmngr'.
6476 '--prefer-system-dirmngr'
6477 This option is obsolete and ignored.
6480 Entirely disable the use of the Dirmngr.
6483 Do not start the gpg-agent or the dirmngr if it has not yet been
6484 started and its service is required. This option is mostly useful
6485 on machines where the connection to gpg-agent has been redirected
6486 to another machines. If dirmngr is required on the remote machine,
6487 it may be started manually using 'gpgconf --launch dirmngr'.
6489 '--no-secmem-warning'
6490 Do not print a warning when the so called "secure memory" cannot be
6494 When running in server mode, append all logging output to FILE.
6495 Use 'socket://' to log to socket.
6498 File: gnupg.info, Node: Certificate Options, Next: Input and Output, Prev: Configuration Options, Up: GPGSM Options
6500 5.2.2 Certificate related options
6501 ---------------------------------
6503 '--enable-policy-checks'
6504 '--disable-policy-checks'
6505 By default policy checks are enabled. These options may be used to
6508 '--enable-crl-checks'
6509 '--disable-crl-checks'
6510 By default the CRL checks are enabled and the DirMngr is used to
6511 check for revoked certificates. The disable option is most useful
6512 with an off-line network connection to suppress this check and also
6513 to avoid that new certificates introduce a web bug by including a
6514 certificate specific CRL DP. The disable option also disables an
6515 issuer certificate lookup via the authorityInfoAccess property of
6516 the certificate; the '--enable-issuer-key-retrieve' can be used to
6517 make use of that property anyway.
6519 '--enable-trusted-cert-crl-check'
6520 '--disable-trusted-cert-crl-check'
6521 By default the CRL for trusted root certificates are checked like
6522 for any other certificates. This allows a CA to revoke its own
6523 certificates voluntary without the need of putting all ever issued
6524 certificates into a CRL. The disable option may be used to switch
6525 this extra check off. Due to the caching done by the Dirmngr,
6526 there will not be any noticeable performance gain. Note, that this
6527 also disables possible OCSP checks for trusted root certificates.
6528 A more specific way of disabling this check is by adding the
6529 "relax" keyword to the root CA line of the 'trustlist.txt'
6531 '--force-crl-refresh'
6532 Tell the dirmngr to reload the CRL for each request. For better
6533 performance, the dirmngr will actually optimize this by suppressing
6534 the loading for short time intervals (e.g. 30 minutes). This
6535 option is useful to make sure that a fresh CRL is available for
6536 certificates hold in the keybox. The suggested way of doing this
6537 is by using it along with the option '--with-validation' for a key
6538 listing command. This option should not be used in a configuration
6541 '--enable-issuer-based-crl-check'
6542 Run a CRL check even for certificates which do not have any CRL
6543 distribution point. This requires that a suitable LDAP server has
6544 been configured in Dirmngr and that the CRL can be found using the
6545 issuer. This option reverts to what GnuPG did up to version
6546 2.2.20. This option is in general not useful.
6550 By default OCSP checks are disabled. The enable option may be used
6551 to enable OCSP checks via Dirmngr. If CRL checks are also enabled,
6552 CRLs will be used as a fallback if for some reason an OCSP request
6553 will not succeed. Note, that you have to allow OCSP requests in
6554 Dirmngr's configuration too (option '--allow-ocsp') and configure
6555 Dirmngr properly. If you do not do so you will get the error code
6558 '--auto-issuer-key-retrieve'
6559 If a required certificate is missing while validating the chain of
6560 certificates, try to load that certificate from an external
6561 location. This usually means that Dirmngr is employed to search
6562 for the certificate. Note that this option makes a "web bug" like
6563 behavior possible. LDAP server operators can see which keys you
6564 request, so by sending you a message signed by a brand new key
6565 (which you naturally will not have on your local keybox), the
6566 operator can tell both your IP address and the time when you
6567 verified the signature.
6569 '--validation-model NAME'
6570 This option changes the default validation model. The only
6571 possible values are "shell" (which is the default), "chain" which
6572 forces the use of the chain model and "steed" for a new simplified
6573 model. The chain model is also used if an option in the
6574 'trustlist.txt' or an attribute of the certificate requests it.
6575 However the standard model (shell) is in that case always tried
6578 '--ignore-cert-extension OID'
6579 Add OID to the list of ignored certificate extensions. The OID is
6580 expected to be in dotted decimal form, like '2.5.29.3'. This
6581 option may be used more than once. Critical flagged certificate
6582 extensions matching one of the OIDs in the list are treated as if
6583 they are actually handled and thus the certificate will not be
6584 rejected due to an unknown critical extension. Use this option
6585 with care because extensions are usually flagged as critical for a
6589 File: gnupg.info, Node: Input and Output, Next: CMS Options, Prev: Certificate Options, Up: GPGSM Options
6591 5.2.3 Input and Output
6592 ----------------------
6596 Create PEM encoded output. Default is binary output.
6599 Create Base-64 encoded output; i.e. PEM without the header lines.
6602 Assume the input data is PEM encoded. Default is to autodetect the
6603 encoding but this is may fail.
6606 Assume the input data is plain base-64 encoded.
6609 Assume the input data is binary encoded.
6611 '--p12-charset NAME'
6612 'gpgsm' uses the UTF-8 encoding when encoding passphrases for
6613 PKCS#12 files. This option may be used to force the passphrase to
6614 be encoded in the specified encoding NAME. This is useful if the
6615 application used to import the key uses a different encoding and
6616 thus will not be able to import a file generated by 'gpgsm'.
6617 Commonly used values for NAME are 'Latin1' and 'CP850'. Note that
6618 'gpgsm' itself automagically imports any file with a passphrase
6619 encoded to the most commonly used encodings.
6621 '--default-key USER_ID'
6622 Use USER_ID as the standard key for signing. This key is used if
6623 no other key has been defined as a signing key. Note, that the
6624 first '--local-users' option also sets this key if it has not yet
6625 been set; however '--default-key' always overrides this.
6627 '--local-user USER_ID'
6629 Set the user(s) to be used for signing. The default is the first
6630 secret key found in the database.
6634 Encrypt to the user id NAME. There are several ways a user id may
6635 be given (*note how-to-specify-a-user-id::).
6639 Write output to FILE. The default is to write it to stdout.
6642 Displays extra information with the '--list-keys' commands.
6643 Especially a line tagged 'grp' is printed which tells you the
6644 keygrip of a key. This string is for example used as the file name
6645 of the secret key. Implies '--with-colons'.
6648 When doing a key listing, do a full validation check for each key
6649 and print the result. This is usually a slow operation because it
6650 requires a CRL lookup and other operations.
6652 When used along with '--import', a validation of the certificate to
6653 import is done and only imported if it succeeds the test. Note
6654 that this does not affect an already available certificate in the
6655 DB. This option is therefore useful to simply verify a certificate.
6657 '--with-md5-fingerprint'
6658 For standard key listings, also print the MD5 fingerprint of the
6662 Include the keygrip in standard key listings. Note that the
6663 keygrip is always listed in '--with-colons' mode.
6666 Include info about the presence of a secret key in public key
6667 listings done with '--with-colons'.
6670 File: gnupg.info, Node: CMS Options, Next: Esoteric Options, Prev: Input and Output, Up: GPGSM Options
6672 5.2.4 How to change how the CMS is created
6673 ------------------------------------------
6676 Using N of -2 includes all certificate except for the root cert, -1
6677 includes all certs, 0 does not include any certs, 1 includes only
6678 the signers cert and all other positive values include up to N
6679 certificates starting with the signer cert. The default is -2.
6682 Use the cipher algorithm with the ASN.1 object identifier OID for
6683 encryption. For convenience the strings '3DES', 'AES' and 'AES256'
6684 may be used instead of their OIDs. The default is 'AES'
6685 (2.16.840.1.101.3.4.1.2).
6687 '--digest-algo name'
6688 Use 'name' as the message digest algorithm. Usually this algorithm
6689 is deduced from the respective signing certificate. This option
6690 forces the use of the given algorithm and may lead to severe
6691 interoperability problems.
6694 File: gnupg.info, Node: Esoteric Options, Prev: CMS Options, Up: GPGSM Options
6696 5.2.5 Doing things one usually do not want to do
6697 ------------------------------------------------
6699 '--extra-digest-algo NAME'
6700 Sometimes signatures are broken in that they announce a different
6701 digest algorithm than actually used. 'gpgsm' uses a one-pass data
6702 processing model and thus needs to rely on the announced digest
6703 algorithms to properly hash the data. As a workaround this option
6704 may be used to tell 'gpgsm' to also hash the data using the
6705 algorithm NAME; this slows processing down a little bit but allows
6706 verification of such broken signatures. If 'gpgsm' prints an error
6707 like "digest algo 8 has not been enabled" you may want to try this
6708 option, with 'SHA256' for NAME.
6710 '--compliance STRING'
6711 Set the compliance mode. Valid values are shown when using "help"
6714 '--min-rsa-length N'
6715 This option adjusts the compliance mode "de-vs" for stricter key
6716 size requirements. For example, a value of 3000 turns rsa2048 and
6717 dsa2048 keys into non-VS-NfD compliant keys.
6719 '--require-compliance'
6720 To check that data has been encrypted according to the rules of the
6721 current compliance mode, a gpgsm user needs to evaluate the status
6722 lines. This is allows frontends to handle compliance check in a
6723 more flexible way. However, for scripted use the required
6724 evaluation of the status-line requires quite some effort; this
6725 option can be used instead to make sure that the gpgsm process
6726 exits with a failure if the compliance rules are not fulfilled.
6727 Note that this option has currently an effect only in "de-vs" mode.
6729 '--ignore-cert-with-oid OID'
6730 Add OID to the list of OIDs to be checked while reading
6731 certificates from smartcards. The OID is expected to be in dotted
6732 decimal form, like '2.5.29.3'. This option may be used more than
6733 once. As of now certificates with an extended key usage matching
6734 one of those OIDs are ignored during a '--learn-card' operation and
6735 not imported. This option can help to keep the local key database
6736 clear of unneeded certificates stored on smartcards.
6738 '--faked-system-time EPOCH'
6739 This option is only useful for testing; it sets the system time
6740 back or forth to EPOCH which is the number of seconds elapsed since
6741 the year 1970. Alternatively EPOCH may be given as a full ISO time
6742 string (e.g. "20070924T154812").
6744 '--with-ephemeral-keys'
6745 Include ephemeral flagged keys in the output of key listings. Note
6746 that they are included anyway if the key specification for a
6747 listing is given as fingerprint or keygrip.
6749 '--compatibility-flags FLAGS'
6750 Set compatibility flags to work around problems due to
6751 non-compliant certificates or data. The FLAGS are given as a comma
6752 separated list of flag names and are OR-ed together. The special
6753 flag "none" clears the list and allows to start over with an empty
6754 list. To get a list of available flags the sole word "help" can be
6757 '--debug-level LEVEL'
6758 Select the debug level for investigating problems. LEVEL may be a
6759 numeric value or by a keyword:
6762 No debugging at all. A value of less than 1 may be used
6763 instead of the keyword.
6765 Some basic debug messages. A value between 1 and 2 may be
6766 used instead of the keyword.
6768 More verbose debug messages. A value between 3 and 5 may be
6769 used instead of the keyword.
6771 Even more detailed messages. A value between 6 and 8 may be
6772 used instead of the keyword.
6774 All of the debug messages you can get. A value greater than 8
6775 may be used instead of the keyword. The creation of hash
6776 tracing files is only enabled if the keyword is used.
6778 How these messages are mapped to the actual debugging flags is not
6779 specified and may change with newer releases of this program. They
6780 are however carefully selected to best aid in debugging.
6783 This option is only useful for debugging and the behaviour may
6784 change at any time without notice; using '--debug-levels' is the
6785 preferred method to select the debug verbosity. FLAGS are bit
6786 encoded and may be given in usual C-Syntax. The currently defined
6790 X.509 or OpenPGP protocol related data
6792 values of big number integers
6794 low level crypto operations
6800 show memory statistics
6802 write hashed data to files named 'dbgmd-000*'
6804 trace Assuan protocol
6806 Note, that all flags set using this option may get overridden by
6810 Same as '--debug=0xffffffff'
6812 '--debug-allow-core-dump'
6813 Usually 'gpgsm' tries to avoid dumping core by well written code
6814 and by disabling core dumps for security reasons. However, bugs
6815 are pretty durable beasts and to squash them it is sometimes useful
6816 to have a core dump. This option enables core dumps unless the Bad
6817 Thing happened before the option parsing.
6819 '--debug-no-chain-validation'
6820 This is actually not a debugging option but only useful as such.
6821 It lets 'gpgsm' bypass all certificate chain validation checks.
6823 '--debug-ignore-expiration'
6824 This is actually not a debugging option but only useful as such.
6825 It lets 'gpgsm' ignore all notAfter dates, this is used by the
6829 Read the passphrase from file descriptor 'n'. Only the first line
6830 will be read from file descriptor 'n'. If you use 0 for 'n', the
6831 passphrase will be read from STDIN. This can only be used if only
6832 one passphrase is supplied.
6834 Note that this passphrase is only used if the option '--batch' has
6837 '--pinentry-mode mode'
6838 Set the pinentry mode to 'mode'. Allowed values for 'mode' are:
6840 Use the default of the agent, which is 'ask'.
6842 Force the use of the Pinentry.
6844 Emulate use of Pinentry's cancel button.
6846 Return a Pinentry error ("No Pinentry").
6848 Redirect Pinentry queries to the caller. Note that in
6849 contrast to Pinentry the user is not prompted again if he
6850 enters a bad password.
6852 '--request-origin ORIGIN'
6853 Tell gpgsm to assume that the operation ultimately originated at
6854 ORIGIN. Depending on the origin certain restrictions are applied
6855 and the Pinentry may include an extra note on the origin.
6856 Supported values for ORIGIN are: 'local' which is the default,
6857 'remote' to indicate a remote origin or 'browser' for an operation
6858 requested by a web browser.
6860 '--no-common-certs-import'
6861 Suppress the import of common certificates on keybox creation.
6863 All the long options may also be given in the configuration file
6864 after stripping off the two leading dashes.
6867 File: gnupg.info, Node: GPGSM Configuration, Next: GPGSM Examples, Prev: GPGSM Options, Up: Invoking GPGSM
6869 5.3 Configuration files
6870 =======================
6872 There are a few configuration files to control certain aspects of
6873 'gpgsm''s operation. Unless noted, they are expected in the current
6874 home directory (*note option --homedir::).
6877 This is the standard configuration file read by 'gpgsm' on startup.
6878 It may contain any valid long option; the leading two dashes may
6879 not be entered and the option may not be abbreviated. This default
6880 name may be changed on the command line (*note gpgsm-option
6881 --options::). You should backup this file.
6884 This is a list of allowed CA policies. This file should list the
6885 object identifiers of the policies line by line. Empty lines and
6886 lines starting with a hash mark are ignored. Policies missing in
6887 this file and not marked as critical in the certificate will print
6888 only a warning; certificates with policies marked as critical and
6889 not listed in this file will fail the signature verification. You
6890 should backup this file.
6892 For example, to allow only the policy 2.289.9.9, the file should
6899 This is the list of root certificates used for qualified
6900 certificates. They are defined as certificates capable of creating
6901 legally binding signatures in the same way as handwritten
6902 signatures are. Comments start with a hash mark and empty lines
6903 are ignored. Lines do have a length limit but this is not a
6904 serious limitation as the format of the entries is fixed and
6905 checked by 'gpgsm': A non-comment line starts with optional
6906 whitespace, followed by exactly 40 hex characters, white space and
6907 a lowercased 2 letter country code. Additional data delimited with
6908 by a white space is current ignored but might late be used for
6911 Note that even if a certificate is listed in this file, this does
6912 not mean that the certificate is trusted; in general the
6913 certificates listed in this file need to be listed also in
6916 This is a global file an installed in the data directory (e.g.
6917 '/usr/local/share/gnupg/qualified.txt'). GnuPG installs a suitable
6918 file with root certificates as used in Germany. As new Root-CA
6919 certificates may be issued over time, these entries may need to be
6920 updated; new distributions of this software should come with an
6921 updated list but it is still the responsibility of the
6922 Administrator to check that this list is correct.
6924 Every time 'gpgsm' uses a certificate for signing or verification
6925 this file will be consulted to check whether the certificate under
6926 question has ultimately been issued by one of these CAs. If this
6927 is the case the user will be informed that the verified signature
6928 represents a legally binding ("qualified") signature. When
6929 creating a signature using such a certificate an extra prompt will
6930 be issued to let the user confirm that such a legally binding
6931 signature shall really be created.
6933 Because this software has not yet been approved for use with such
6934 certificates, appropriate notices will be shown to indicate this
6938 This is plain text file with a few help entries used with
6939 'pinentry' as well as a large list of help items for 'gpg' and
6940 'gpgsm'. The standard file has English help texts; to install
6941 localized versions use filenames like 'help.LL.txt' with LL
6942 denoting the locale. GnuPG comes with a set of predefined help
6943 files in the data directory (e.g.
6944 '/usr/local/share/gnupg/gnupg/help.de.txt') and allows overriding
6945 of any help item by help files stored in the system configuration
6946 directory (e.g. '/etc/gnupg/help.de.txt'). For a reference of the
6947 help file's syntax, please see the installed 'help.txt' file.
6950 This file is a collection of common certificates used to populated
6951 a newly created 'pubring.kbx'. An administrator may replace this
6952 file with a custom one. The format is a concatenation of PEM
6953 encoded X.509 certificates. This global file is installed in the
6954 data directory (e.g. '/usr/local/share/gnupg/com-certs.pem').
6956 Note that on larger installations, it is useful to put predefined
6957 files into the directory '/etc/skel/.gnupg/' so that newly created users
6958 start up with a working configuration. For existing users a small
6959 helper script is provided to create these files (*note addgnupghome::).
6961 For internal purposes 'gpgsm' creates and maintains a few other
6962 files; they all live in the current home directory (*note option
6963 --homedir::). Only 'gpgsm' may modify these files.
6966 This a database file storing the certificates as well as meta
6967 information. For debugging purposes the tool 'kbxutil' may be used
6968 to show the internal structure of this file. You should backup
6972 This content of this file is used to maintain the internal state of
6973 the random number generator across invocations. The same file is
6974 used by other programs of this software too.
6977 If this file exists 'gpgsm' will first try to connect to this
6978 socket for accessing 'gpg-agent' before starting a new 'gpg-agent'
6979 instance. Under Windows this socket (which in reality be a plain
6980 file describing a regular TCP listening port) is the standard way
6981 of connecting the 'gpg-agent'.
6984 File: gnupg.info, Node: GPGSM Examples, Next: Unattended Usage, Prev: GPGSM Configuration, Up: Invoking GPGSM
6989 $ gpgsm -er goo@bar.net <plaintext >ciphertext
6992 File: gnupg.info, Node: Unattended Usage, Next: GPGSM Protocol, Prev: GPGSM Examples, Up: Invoking GPGSM
6994 5.5 Unattended Usage
6995 ====================
6997 'gpgsm' is often used as a backend engine by other software. To help
6998 with this a machine interface has been defined to have an unambiguous
6999 way to do this. This is most likely used with the '--server' command
7000 but may also be used in the standard operation mode by using the
7001 '--status-fd' option.
7005 * Automated signature checking:: Automated signature checking.
7006 * CSR and certificate creation:: CSR and certificate creation.
7009 File: gnupg.info, Node: Automated signature checking, Next: CSR and certificate creation, Up: Unattended Usage
7011 5.5.1 Automated signature checking
7012 ----------------------------------
7014 It is very important to understand the semantics used with signature
7015 verification. Checking a signature is not as simple as it may sound and
7016 so the operation is a bit complicated. In most cases it is required to
7017 look at several status lines. Here is a table of all cases a signed
7020 The signature is valid
7021 This does mean that the signature has been successfully verified,
7022 the certificates are all sane. However there are two subcases with
7023 important information: One of the certificates may have expired or
7024 a signature of a message itself as expired. It is a sound practise
7025 to consider such a signature still as valid but additional
7026 information should be displayed. Depending on the subcase 'gpgsm'
7027 will issue these status codes:
7028 signature valid and nothing did expire
7029 'GOODSIG', 'VALIDSIG', 'TRUST_FULLY'
7030 signature valid but at least one certificate has expired
7031 'EXPKEYSIG', 'VALIDSIG', 'TRUST_FULLY'
7032 signature valid but expired
7033 'EXPSIG', 'VALIDSIG', 'TRUST_FULLY' Note, that this case is
7034 currently not implemented.
7036 The signature is invalid
7037 This means that the signature verification failed (this is an
7038 indication of a transfer error, a program error or tampering with
7039 the message). 'gpgsm' issues one of these status codes sequences:
7041 'GOODSIG, VALIDSIG TRUST_NEVER'
7043 Error verifying a signature
7044 For some reason the signature could not be verified, i.e. it
7045 cannot be decided whether the signature is valid or invalid. A
7046 common reason for this is a missing certificate.
7049 File: gnupg.info, Node: CSR and certificate creation, Prev: Automated signature checking, Up: Unattended Usage
7051 5.5.2 CSR and certificate creation
7052 ----------------------------------
7054 The command '--generate-key' may be used along with the option '--batch'
7055 to either create a certificate signing request (CSR) or an X.509
7056 certificate. This is controlled by a parameter file; the format of this
7059 * Text only, line length is limited to about 1000 characters.
7060 * UTF-8 encoding must be used to specify non-ASCII characters.
7061 * Empty lines are ignored.
7062 * Leading and trailing while space is ignored.
7063 * A hash sign as the first non white space character indicates a
7065 * Control statements are indicated by a leading percent sign, the
7066 arguments are separated by white space from the keyword.
7067 * Parameters are specified by a keyword, followed by a colon.
7068 Arguments are separated by white space.
7069 * The first parameter must be 'Key-Type', control statements may be
7071 * The order of the parameters does not matter except for 'Key-Type'
7072 which must be the first parameter. The parameters are only used
7073 for the generated CSR/certificate; parameters from previous sets
7074 are not used. Some syntactically checks may be performed.
7075 * Key generation takes place when either the end of the parameter
7076 file is reached, the next 'Key-Type' parameter is encountered or at
7077 the control statement '%commit' is encountered.
7082 Print TEXT as diagnostic.
7085 Suppress actual key generation (useful for syntax checking).
7088 Perform the key generation. Note that an implicit commit is done
7089 at the next Key-Type parameter.
7094 Starts a new parameter block by giving the type of the primary key.
7095 The algorithm must be capable of signing. This is a required
7096 parameter. The only supported value for ALGO is 'rsa'.
7099 The requested length of a generated key in bits. Defaults to 3072.
7102 This is optional and used to generate a CSR or certificate for an
7103 already existing key. Key-Length will be ignored when given.
7105 Key-Usage: USAGE-LIST
7106 Space or comma delimited list of key usage, allowed values are
7107 'encrypt', 'sign' and 'cert'. This is used to generate the
7108 keyUsage extension. Please make sure that the algorithm is capable
7109 of this usage. Default is to allow encrypt and sign.
7111 Name-DN: SUBJECT-NAME
7112 This is the Distinguished Name (DN) of the subject in RFC-2253
7116 This is an email address for the altSubjectName. This parameter is
7117 optional but may occur several times to add several email addresses
7121 The is an DNS name for the altSubjectName. This parameter is
7122 optional but may occur several times to add several DNS names to a
7126 This is an URI for the altSubjectName. This parameter is optional
7127 but may occur several times to add several URIs to a certificate.
7129 Additional parameters used to create a certificate (in contrast to a
7130 certificate signing request):
7133 If this parameter is given an X.509 certificate will be generated.
7134 SN is expected to be a hex string representing an unsigned integer
7135 of arbitrary length. The special value 'random' can be used to
7136 create a 64 bit random serial number.
7138 Issuer-DN: ISSUER-NAME
7139 This is the DN name of the issuer in RFC-2253 format. If it is not
7140 set it will default to the subject DN and a special GnuPG extension
7141 will be included in the certificate to mark it as a standalone
7144 Creation-Date: ISO-DATE
7145 Not-Before: ISO-DATE
7146 Set the notBefore date of the certificate. Either a date like
7147 '1986-04-26' or '1986-04-26 12:00' or a standard ISO timestamp like
7148 '19860426T042640' may be used. The time is considered to be UTC.
7149 If it is not given the current date is used.
7151 Expire-Date: ISO-DATE
7153 Set the notAfter date of the certificate. Either a date like
7154 '2063-04-05' or '2063-04-05 17:00' or a standard ISO timestamp like
7155 '20630405T170000' may be used. The time is considered to be UTC.
7156 If it is not given a default value in the not too far future is
7159 Signing-Key: KEYGRIP
7160 This gives the keygrip of the key used to sign the certificate. If
7161 it is not given a self-signed certificate will be created. For
7162 compatibility with future versions, it is suggested to prefix the
7165 Hash-Algo: HASH-ALGO
7166 Use HASH-ALGO for this CSR or certificate. The supported hash
7167 algorithms are: 'sha1', 'sha256', 'sha384' and 'sha512'; they may
7168 also be specified with uppercase letters. The default is 'sha256'.
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