Current File : //usr/share/info/gnupg.info-1

This is gnupg.info, produced by makeinfo version 5.2 from gnupg.texi.

This is the 'The GNU Privacy Guard Manual' (version 2.0.27, February
2015).

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
document under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the
License, or (at your option) any later version. The text of the
license can be found in the section entitled "Copying".
INFO-DIR-SECTION GNU Utilities
START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
* gpg2: (gnupg). OpenPGP encryption and signing tool.
* gpgsm: (gnupg). S/MIME encryption and signing tool.
* gpg-agent: (gnupg). The secret key daemon.
END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY

File: gnupg.info, Node: Top, Next: Installation, Up: (dir)

Using the GNU Privacy Guard
***************************

This is the 'The GNU Privacy Guard Manual' (version 2.0.27, February
2015).

This manual documents how to use the GNU Privacy Guard system as well
as the administration and the architecture.

* Menu:

* Installation:: A short installation guide.

* Invoking GPG-AGENT:: How to launch the secret key daemon.
* Invoking GPG:: Using the OpenPGP protocol.
* Invoking GPGSM:: Using the S/MIME protocol.
* Invoking SCDAEMON:: How to handle Smartcards.
* Specify a User ID:: How to Specify a User Id.

* Helper Tools:: Description of small helper tools

* Howtos:: How to do certain things.
* System Notes:: Notes pertaining to certain OSes.
* Debugging:: How to solve problems

* Copying:: GNU General Public License says
how you can copy and share GnuPG
* Contributors:: People who have contributed to GnuPG.

* Glossary:: Short description of terms used.
* Option Index:: Index to command line options.
* Index:: Index of concepts and symbol names.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Installation, Next: Invoking GPG-AGENT, Prev: Top, Up: Top

1 A short installation guide.
*****************************

Unfortunately the installation guide has not been finished in time.
Instead of delaying the release of GnuPG 2.0 even further, I decided to
release without that guide. The chapter on gpg-agent and gpgsm do
include brief information on how to set up the whole thing. Please
watch the GnuPG website for updates of the documentation. In the
meantime you may search the GnuPG mailing list archives or ask on the
gnupg-users mailing listsfor advise on how to solve problems or how to
get that whole thing up and running.

** Building the software

Building the software is decribed in the file 'INSTALL'. Given that
you are already reading this documentation we can only give some extra
hints

To comply with the rules on GNU systems you should have build time
configured 'dirmngr' using:

./configure --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var

This is to make sure that system wide configuration files are
searched in the directory '/etc/gnupg' and variable data below '/var';
the default would be to also install them below '/usr/local' where the
binaries get installed. If you selected to use the '--prefix=/' you
obviously don't need those option as they are the default then.

** Explain how to setup a root CA key as trusted

Such questions may also help to write a proper installation guide.

[to be written]

XXX Tell how to setup the system, install certificates, how dirmngr
relates to GnuPG etc.

** Explain how to setup a root CA key as trusted

X.509 is based on a hierarchical key infrastructure. At the root of
the tree a trusted anchor (root certificate) is required. There are
usually no other means of verifying whether this root certificate is
trustworthy than looking it up in a list. GnuPG uses a file
('trustlist.txt') to keep track of all root certificates it knows about.
There are 3 ways to get certificates into this list:

* Use the list which comes with GnuPG. However this list only
contains a few root certificates. Most installations will need
more.

* Let 'gpgsm' ask you whether you want to insert a new root
certificate. To enable this feature you need to set the option
'allow-mark-trusted' into 'gpg-agent.conf'. In general it is not a
good idea to do it this way. Checking whether a root certificate
is really trustworthy requires decisions, which casual users are
not up to. Thus, by default this option is not enabled.

* Manually maintain the list of trusted root certificates. For a
multi user installation this can be done once for all users on a
machine. Specific changes on a per-user base are also possible.

XXX decribe how to maintain trustlist.txt and
/etc/gnupg/trustlist.txt.

** How to get the ssh support running

XXX How to use the ssh support.

1.1 Installation Overview
=========================

XXXX

File: gnupg.info, Node: Invoking GPG-AGENT, Next: Invoking GPG, Prev: Installation, Up: Top

2 Invoking GPG-AGENT
********************

'gpg-agent' is a daemon to manage secret (private) keys independently
from any protocol. It is used as a backend for 'gpg' and 'gpgsm' as
well as for a couple of other utilities.

The usual way to run the agent is from the '~/.xsession' file:

eval $(gpg-agent --daemon)
If you don't use an X server, you can also put this into your regular
startup file '~/.profile' or '.bash_profile'. It is best not to run
multiple instance of the 'gpg-agent', so you should make sure that only
one is running: 'gpg-agent' uses an environment variable to inform
clients about the communication parameters. You can write the content
of this environment variable to a file so that you can test for a
running agent. Here is an example using Bourne shell syntax:

gpg-agent --daemon --enable-ssh-support \
--write-env-file "${HOME}/.gpg-agent-info"

This code should only be run once per user session to initially fire
up the agent. In the example the optional support for the included
Secure Shell agent is enabled and the information about the agent is
written to a file in the HOME directory. Note that by running gpg-agent
without arguments you may test whether an agent is already running;
however such a test may lead to a race condition, thus it is not
suggested.

The second script needs to be run for each interactive session:

if [ -f "${HOME}/.gpg-agent-info" ]; then
. "${HOME}/.gpg-agent-info"
export GPG_AGENT_INFO
export SSH_AUTH_SOCK
fi

It reads the data out of the file and exports the variables. If you
don't use Secure Shell, you don't need the last two export statements.

You should always add the following lines to your '.bashrc' or whatever
initialization file is used for all shell invocations:

GPG_TTY=$(tty)
export GPG_TTY

It is important that this environment variable always reflects the
output of the 'tty' command. For W32 systems this option is not
required.

Please make sure that a proper pinentry program has been installed
under the default filename (which is system dependant) or use the option
'pinentry-program' to specify the full name of that program. It is
often useful to install a symbolic link from the actual used pinentry
(e.g. '/usr/bin/pinentry-gtk') to the expected one (e.g.
'/usr/bin/pinentry').

*Note Option Index::,for an index to 'GPG-AGENT''s commands and options.

* Menu:

* Agent Commands:: List of all commands.
* Agent Options:: List of all options.
* Agent Configuration:: Configuration files.
* Agent Signals:: Use of some signals.
* Agent Examples:: Some usage examples.
* Agent Protocol:: The protocol the agent uses.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent Commands, Next: Agent Options, Up: Invoking GPG-AGENT

2.1 Commands
============

Commands are not distinguished from options except for the fact that
only one command is allowed.

'--version'
Print the program version and licensing information. Note that you
cannot abbreviate this command.

'--help'
'-h'
Print a usage message summarizing the most useful command-line
options. Note that you cannot abbreviate this command.

'--dump-options'
Print a list of all available options and commands. Note that you
cannot abbreviate this command.

'--server'
Run in server mode and wait for commands on the 'stdin'. The
default mode is to create a socket and listen for commands there.

'--daemon [COMMAND LINE]'
Start the gpg-agent as a daemon; that is, detach it from the
console and run it in the background. Because 'gpg-agent' prints
out important information required for further use, a common way of
invoking gpg-agent is: 'eval $(gpg-agent --daemon)' to setup the
environment variables. The option '--write-env-file' is another
way commonly used to do this. Yet another way is creating a new
process as a child of gpg-agent: 'gpg-agent --daemon /bin/sh'.
This way you get a new shell with the environment setup properly;
if you exit from this shell, gpg-agent terminates as well.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent Options, Next: Agent Configuration, Prev: Agent Commands, Up: Invoking GPG-AGENT

2.2 Option Summary
==================

'--options FILE'
Reads configuration from FILE instead of from the default per-user
configuration file. The default configuration file is named
'gpg-agent.conf' and expected in the '.gnupg' directory directly
below the home directory of the user.

'--homedir DIR'
Set the name of the home directory to DIR. If this option is not
used, the home directory defaults to '~/.gnupg'. It is only
recognized when given on the command line. It also overrides any
home directory stated through the environment variable 'GNUPGHOME'
or (on W32 systems) by means of the Registry entry
HKCU\SOFTWARE\GNU\GNUPG:HOMEDIR.

'-v'
'--verbose'
Outputs additional information while running. You can increase the
verbosity by giving several verbose commands to 'gpgsm', such as
'-vv'.

'-q'
'--quiet'
Try to be as quiet as possible.

'--batch'
Don't invoke a pinentry or do any other thing requiring human
interaction.

'--faked-system-time EPOCH'
This option is only useful for testing; it sets the system time
back or forth to EPOCH which is the number of seconds elapsed since
the year 1970.

'--debug-level LEVEL'
Select the debug level for investigating problems. LEVEL may be a
numeric value or a keyword:

'none'
No debugging at all. A value of less than 1 may be used
instead of the keyword.
'basic'
Some basic debug messages. A value between 1 and 2 may be
used instead of the keyword.
'advanced'
More verbose debug messages. A value between 3 and 5 may be
used instead of the keyword.
'expert'
Even more detailed messages. A value between 6 and 8 may be
used instead of the keyword.
'guru'
All of the debug messages you can get. A value greater than 8
may be used instead of the keyword. The creation of hash
tracing files is only enabled if the keyword is used.

How these messages are mapped to the actual debugging flags is not
specified and may change with newer releases of this program. They
are however carefully selected to best aid in debugging.

'--debug FLAGS'
This option is only useful for debugging and the behaviour may
change at any time without notice. FLAGS are bit encoded and may
be given in usual C-Syntax. The currently defined bits are:

'0 (1)'
X.509 or OpenPGP protocol related data
'1 (2)'
values of big number integers
'2 (4)'
low level crypto operations
'5 (32)'
memory allocation
'6 (64)'
caching
'7 (128)'
show memory statistics.
'9 (512)'
write hashed data to files named 'dbgmd-000*'
'10 (1024)'
trace Assuan protocol
'12 (4096)'
bypass all certificate validation

'--debug-all'
Same as '--debug=0xffffffff'

'--debug-wait N'
When running in server mode, wait N seconds before entering the
actual processing loop and print the pid. This gives time to
attach a debugger.

'--no-detach'
Don't detach the process from the console. This is mainly useful
for debugging.

'-s'
'--sh'
'-c'
'--csh'
Format the info output in daemon mode for use with the standard
Bourne shell or the C-shell respectively. The default is to guess
it based on the environment variable 'SHELL' which is correct in
almost all cases.

'--write-env-file FILE'
Often it is required to connect to the agent from a process not
being an inferior of 'gpg-agent' and thus the environment variable
with the socket name is not available. To help setting up those
variables in other sessions, this option may be used to write the
information into FILE. If FILE is not specified the default name
'${HOME}/.gpg-agent-info' will be used. The format is suitable to
be evaluated by a Bourne shell like in this simple example:

eval $(cat FILE)
eval $(cut -d= -f 1 < FILE | xargs echo export)

'--no-grab'
Tell the pinentry not to grab the keyboard and mouse. This option
should in general not be used to avoid X-sniffing attacks.

'--log-file FILE'
Append all logging output to FILE. This is very helpful in seeing
what the agent actually does. If neither a log file nor a log file
descriptor has been set on a Windows platform, the Registry entry
'HKCU\Software\GNU\GnuPG:DefaultLogFile', if set, is used to
specify the logging output.

'--allow-mark-trusted'
Allow clients to mark keys as trusted, i.e. put them into the
'trustlist.txt' file. This is by default not allowed to make it
harder for users to inadvertently accept Root-CA keys.

'--ignore-cache-for-signing'
This option will let 'gpg-agent' bypass the passphrase cache for
all signing operation. Note that there is also a per-session
option to control this behaviour but this command line option takes
precedence.

'--default-cache-ttl N'
Set the time a cache entry is valid to N seconds. The default is
600 seconds.

'--default-cache-ttl-ssh N'
Set the time a cache entry used for SSH keys is valid to N seconds.
The default is 1800 seconds.

'--max-cache-ttl N'
Set the maximum time a cache entry is valid to N seconds. After
this time a cache entry will be expired even if it has been
accessed recently or has been set using 'gpg-preset-passphrase'.
The default is 2 hours (7200 seconds).

'--max-cache-ttl-ssh N'
Set the maximum time a cache entry used for SSH keys is valid to N
seconds. After this time a cache entry will be expired even if it
has been accessed recently or has been set using
'gpg-preset-passphrase'. The default is 2 hours (7200 seconds).

'--enforce-passphrase-constraints'
Enforce the passphrase constraints by not allowing the user to
bypass them using the "Take it anyway" button.

'--min-passphrase-len N'
Set the minimal length of a passphrase. When entering a new
passphrase shorter than this value a warning will be displayed.
Defaults to 8.

'--min-passphrase-nonalpha N'
Set the minimal number of digits or special characters required in
a passphrase. When entering a new passphrase with less than this
number of digits or special characters a warning will be displayed.
Defaults to 1.

'--check-passphrase-pattern FILE'
Check the passphrase against the pattern given in FILE. When
entering a new passphrase matching one of these pattern a warning
will be displayed. FILE should be an absolute filename. The
default is not to use any pattern file.

Security note: It is known that checking a passphrase against a
list of pattern or even against a complete dictionary is not very
effective to enforce good passphrases. Users will soon figure up
ways to bypass such a policy. A better policy is to educate users
on good security behavior and optionally to run a passphrase
cracker regularly on all users passphrases to catch the very simple
ones.

'--max-passphrase-days N'
Ask the user to change the passphrase if N days have passed since
the last change. With '--enforce-passphrase-constraints' set the
user may not bypass this check.

'--enable-passphrase-history'
This option does nothing yet.

'--pinentry-program FILENAME'
Use program FILENAME as the PIN entry. The default is installation
dependent.

'--pinentry-touch-file FILENAME'
By default the filename of the socket gpg-agent is listening for
requests is passed to Pinentry, so that it can touch that file
before exiting (it does this only in curses mode). This option
changes the file passed to Pinentry to FILENAME. The special name
'/dev/null' may be used to completely disable this feature. Note
that Pinentry will not create that file, it will only change the
modification and access time.

'--scdaemon-program FILENAME'
Use program FILENAME as the Smartcard daemon. The default is
installation dependent and can be shown with the 'gpgconf' command.

'--disable-scdaemon'
Do not make use of the scdaemon tool. This option has the effect
of disabling the ability to do smartcard operations. Note, that
enabling this option at runtime does not kill an already forked
scdaemon.

'--use-standard-socket'
'--no-use-standard-socket'
By enabling this option 'gpg-agent' will listen on the socket named
'S.gpg-agent', located in the home directory, and not create a
random socket below a temporary directory. Tools connecting to
'gpg-agent' should first try to connect to the socket given in
environment variable GPG_AGENT_INFO and then fall back to this
socket. This option may not be used if the home directory is
mounted on a remote file system which does not support special
files like fifos or sockets. Note, that '--use-standard-socket' is
the default on Windows systems. The default may be changed at
build time. It is possible to test at runtime whether the agent
has been configured for use with the standard socket by issuing the
command 'gpg-agent --use-standard-socket-p' which returns success
if the standard socket option has been enabled.

'--display STRING'
'--ttyname STRING'
'--ttytype STRING'
'--lc-ctype STRING'
'--lc-messages STRING'
'--xauthority STRING'
These options are used with the server mode to pass localization
information.

'--keep-tty'
'--keep-display'
Ignore requests to change the current 'tty' or X window system's
'DISPLAY' variable respectively. This is useful to lock the
pinentry to pop up at the 'tty' or display you started the agent.

'--enable-ssh-support'

Enable the OpenSSH Agent protocol.

In this mode of operation, the agent does not only implement the
gpg-agent protocol, but also the agent protocol used by OpenSSH
(through a separate socket). Consequently, it should be possible
to use the gpg-agent as a drop-in replacement for the well known
ssh-agent.

SSH Keys, which are to be used through the agent, need to be added
to the gpg-agent initially through the ssh-add utility. When a key
is added, ssh-add will ask for the password of the provided key
file and send the unprotected key material to the agent; this
causes the gpg-agent to ask for a passphrase, which is to be used
for encrypting the newly received key and storing it in a gpg-agent
specific directory.

Once a key has been added to the gpg-agent this way, the gpg-agent
will be ready to use the key.

Note: in case the gpg-agent receives a signature request, the user
might need to be prompted for a passphrase, which is necessary for
decrypting the stored key. Since the ssh-agent protocol does not
contain a mechanism for telling the agent on which display/terminal
it is running, gpg-agent's ssh-support will use the TTY or X
display where gpg-agent has been started. To switch this display
to the current one, the following command may be used:

gpg-connect-agent updatestartuptty /bye

Although all GnuPG components try to start the gpg-agent as needed,
this is not possible for the ssh support because ssh does not know
about it. Thus if no GnuPG tool which accesses the agent has been
run, there is no guarantee that ssh is abale to use gpg-agent for
authentication. To fix this you may start gpg-agent if needed
using this simple command:

gpg-connect-agent /bye

Adding the '--verbose' shows the progress of starting the agent.

All the long options may also be given in the configuration file
after stripping off the two leading dashes.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent Configuration, Next: Agent Signals, Prev: Agent Options, Up: Invoking GPG-AGENT

2.3 Configuration
=================

There are a few configuration files needed for the operation of the
agent. By default they may all be found in the current home directory
(*note option --homedir::).

'gpg-agent.conf'
This is the standard configuration file read by 'gpg-agent' on
startup. It may contain any valid long option; the leading two
dashes may not be entered and the option may not be abbreviated.
This file is also read after a 'SIGHUP' however only a few options
will actually have an effect. This default name may be changed on
the command line (*note option --options::). You should backup
this file.

'trustlist.txt'
This is the list of trusted keys. You should backup this file.

Comment lines, indicated by a leading hash mark, as well as empty
lines are ignored. To mark a key as trusted you need to enter its
fingerprint followed by a space and a capital letter 'S'. Colons
may optionally be used to separate the bytes of a fingerprint; this
allows to cut and paste the fingerprint from a key listing output.
If the line is prefixed with a '!' the key is explicitly marked as
not trusted.

Here is an example where two keys are marked as ultimately trusted
and one as not trusted:

# CN=Wurzel ZS 3,O=Intevation GmbH,C=DE
A6935DD34EF3087973C706FC311AA2CCF733765B S

# CN=PCA-1-Verwaltung-02/O=PKI-1-Verwaltung/C=DE
DC:BD:69:25:48:BD:BB:7E:31:6E:BB:80:D3:00:80:35:D4:F8:A6:CD S

# CN=Root-CA/O=Schlapphuete/L=Pullach/C=DE
!14:56:98:D3:FE:9C:CA:5A:31:6E:BC:81:D3:11:4E:00:90:A3:44:C2 S

Before entering a key into this file, you need to ensure its
authenticity. How to do this depends on your organisation; your
administrator might have already entered those keys which are
deemed trustworthy enough into this file. Places where to look for
the fingerprint of a root certificate are letters received from the
CA or the website of the CA (after making 100% sure that this is
indeed the website of that CA). You may want to consider allowing
interactive updates of this file by using the *Note option
--allow-mark-trusted::. This is however not as secure as
maintaining this file manually. It is even advisable to change the
permissions to read-only so that this file can't be changed
inadvertently.

As a special feature a line 'include-default' will include a global
list of trusted certificates (e.g. '/etc/gnupg/trustlist.txt').
This global list is also used if the local list is not available.

It is possible to add further flags after the 'S' for use by the
caller:

'relax'
Relax checking of some root certificate requirements. As of
now this flag allows the use of root certificates with a
missing basicConstraints attribute (despite that it is a MUST
for CA certificates) and disables CRL checking for the root
certificate.

'cm'
If validation of a certificate finally issued by a CA with
this flag set fails, try again using the chain validation
model.

'sshcontrol'
This file is used when support for the secure shell agent protocol
has been enabled (*note option --enable-ssh-support::). Only keys
present in this file are used in the SSH protocol. You should
backup this file.

The 'ssh-add' tool may be used to add new entries to this file; you
may also add them manually. Comment lines, indicated by a leading
hash mark, as well as empty lines are ignored. An entry starts
with optional whitespace, followed by the keygrip of the key given
as 40 hex digits, optionally followed by the caching TTL in seconds
and another optional field for arbitrary flags. A non-zero TTL
overrides the global default as set by '--default-cache-ttl-ssh'.

The only flag support is 'confirm'. If this flag is found for a
key, each use of the key will pop up a pinentry to confirm the use
of that key. The flag is automatically set if a new key was loaded
into 'gpg-agent' using the option '-c' of the 'ssh-add' command.

The keygrip may be prefixed with a '!' to disable an entry entry.

The following example lists exactly one key. Note that keys
available through a OpenPGP smartcard in the active smartcard
reader are implicitly added to this list; i.e. there is no need to
list them.

# Key added on: 2011-07-20 20:38:46
# Fingerprint: 5e:8d:c4:ad:e7:af:6e:27:8a:d6:13:e4:79:ad:0b:81
34B62F25E277CF13D3C6BCEBFD3F85D08F0A864B 0 confirm

'private-keys-v1.d/'

This is the directory where gpg-agent stores the private keys.
Each key is stored in a file with the name made up of the keygrip
and the suffix 'key'. You should backup all files in this
directory and take great care to keep this backup closed away.

Note that on larger installations, it is useful to put predefined
files into the directory '/etc/skel/.gnupg/' so that newly created users
start up with a working configuration. For existing users the a small
helper script is provided to create these files (*note addgnupghome::).

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent Signals, Next: Agent Examples, Prev: Agent Configuration, Up: Invoking GPG-AGENT

2.4 Use of some signals.
========================

A running 'gpg-agent' may be controlled by signals, i.e. using the
'kill' command to send a signal to the process.

Here is a list of supported signals:

'SIGHUP'
This signal flushes all cached passphrases and if the program has
been started with a configuration file, the configuration file is
read again. Only certain options are honored: 'quiet', 'verbose',
'debug', 'debug-all', 'debug-level', 'no-grab', 'pinentry-program',
'default-cache-ttl', 'max-cache-ttl', 'ignore-cache-for-signing',
'allow-mark-trusted', 'disable-scdaemon', and
'disable-check-own-socket'. 'scdaemon-program' is also supported
but due to the current implementation, which calls the scdaemon
only once, it is not of much use unless you manually kill the
scdaemon.

'SIGTERM'
Shuts down the process but waits until all current requests are
fulfilled. If the process has received 3 of these signals and
requests are still pending, a shutdown is forced.

'SIGINT'
Shuts down the process immediately.

'SIGUSR1'
Dump internal information to the log file.

'SIGUSR2'
This signal is used for internal purposes.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent Examples, Next: Agent Protocol, Prev: Agent Signals, Up: Invoking GPG-AGENT

2.5 Examples
============

The usual way to invoke 'gpg-agent' is

$ eval $(gpg-agent --daemon)

An alternative way is by replacing 'ssh-agent' with 'gpg-agent'. If
for example 'ssh-agent' is started as part of the Xsession
initialization, you may simply replace 'ssh-agent' by a script like:

#!/bin/sh

exec /usr/local/bin/gpg-agent --enable-ssh-support --daemon \
--write-env-file ${HOME}/.gpg-agent-info "$@"

and add something like (for Bourne shells)

if [ -f "${HOME}/.gpg-agent-info" ]; then
. "${HOME}/.gpg-agent-info"
export GPG_AGENT_INFO
export SSH_AUTH_SOCK
fi

to your shell initialization file (e.g. '~/.bashrc').

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent Protocol, Prev: Agent Examples, Up: Invoking GPG-AGENT

2.6 Agent's Assuan Protocol
===========================

Note: this section does only document the protocol, which is used by
GnuPG components; it does not deal with the ssh-agent protocol.

The 'gpg-agent' should be started by the login shell and set an
environment variable to tell clients about the socket to be used.
Clients should deny to access an agent with a socket name which does not
match its own configuration. An application may choose to start an
instance of the gpgagent if it does not figure that any has been
started; it should not do this if a gpgagent is running but not usable.
Because 'gpg-agent' can only be used in background mode, no special
command line option is required to activate the use of the protocol.

To identify a key we use a thing called keygrip which is the SHA-1
hash of an canonical encoded S-Expression of the public key as used in
Libgcrypt. For the purpose of this interface the keygrip is given as a
hex string. The advantage of using this and not the hash of a
certificate is that it will be possible to use the same keypair for
different protocols, thereby saving space on the token used to keep the
secret keys.

* Menu:

* Agent PKDECRYPT:: Decrypting a session key
* Agent PKSIGN:: Signing a Hash
* Agent GENKEY:: Generating a Key
* Agent IMPORT:: Importing a Secret Key
* Agent EXPORT:: Exporting a Secret Key
* Agent ISTRUSTED:: Importing a Root Certificate
* Agent GET_PASSPHRASE:: Ask for a passphrase
* Agent CLEAR_PASSPHRASE:: Expire a cached passphrase
* Agent GET_CONFIRMATION:: Ask for confirmation
* Agent HAVEKEY:: Check whether a key is available
* Agent LEARN:: Register a smartcard
* Agent PASSWD:: Change a Passphrase
* Agent UPDATESTARTUPTTY:: Change the Standard Display
* Agent GETEVENTCOUNTER:: Get the Event Counters
* Agent GETINFO:: Return information about the process
* Agent OPTION:: Set options for the session

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent PKDECRYPT, Next: Agent PKSIGN, Up: Agent Protocol

2.6.1 Decrypting a session key
------------------------------

The client asks the server to decrypt a session key. The encrypted
session key should have all information needed to select the appropriate
secret key or to delegate it to a smartcard.

SETKEY <keyGrip>

Tell the server about the key to be used for decryption. If this is
not used, 'gpg-agent' may try to figure out the key by trying to decrypt
the message with each key available.

PKDECRYPT

The agent checks whether this command is allowed and then does an
INQUIRY to get the ciphertext the client should then send the cipher
text.

S: INQUIRE CIPHERTEXT
C: D (xxxxxx
C: D xxxx)
C: END

Please note that the server may send status info lines while reading
the data lines from the client. The data send is a SPKI like S-Exp with
this structure:

(enc-val
(<algo>
(<param_name1> <mpi>)
...
(<param_namen> <mpi>)))

Where algo is a string with the name of the algorithm; see the
libgcrypt documentation for a list of valid algorithms. The number and
names of the parameters depend on the algorithm. The agent does return
an error if there is an inconsistency.

If the decryption was successful the decrypted data is returned by
means of "D" lines.

Here is an example session:

C: PKDECRYPT
S: INQUIRE CIPHERTEXT
C: D (enc-val elg (a 349324324)
C: D (b 3F444677CA)))
C: END
S: # session key follows
S: S PADDING 0
S: D (value 1234567890ABCDEF0)
S: OK descryption successful

The “PADDING” status line is only send if gpg-agent can tell what
kind of padding is used. As of now only the value 0 is used to indicate
that the padding has been removed.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent PKSIGN, Next: Agent GENKEY, Prev: Agent PKDECRYPT, Up: Agent Protocol

2.6.2 Signing a Hash
--------------------

The client ask the agent to sign a given hash value. A default key will
be chosen if no key has been set. To set a key a client first uses:

SIGKEY <keyGrip>

This can be used multiple times to create multiple signature, the
list of keys is reset with the next PKSIGN command or a RESET. The
server test whether the key is a valid key to sign something and
responds with okay.

SETHASH --hash=<name>|<algo> <hexstring>

The client can use this command to tell the server about the data
<hexstring> (which usually is a hash) to be signed. <algo> is the
decimal encoded hash algorithm number as used by Libgcrypt. Either
<algo> or -hash=<name> must be given. Valid names for <name> are:

'sha1'
'sha256'
'rmd160'
'md5'
'tls-md5sha1'

The actual signing is done using

PKSIGN <options>

Options are not yet defined, but my later be used to choose among
different algorithms. The agent does then some checks, asks for the
passphrase and as a result the server returns the signature as an SPKI
like S-expression in "D" lines:

(sig-val
(<algo>
(<param_name1> <mpi>)
...
(<param_namen> <mpi>)))

The operation is affected by the option

OPTION use-cache-for-signing=0|1

The default of '1' uses the cache. Setting this option to '0' will
lead 'gpg-agent' to ignore the passphrase cache. Note, that there is
also a global command line option for 'gpg-agent' to globally disable
the caching.

Here is an example session:

C: SIGKEY <keyGrip>
S: OK key available
C: SIGKEY <keyGrip>
S: OK key available
C: PKSIGN
S: # I did ask the user whether he really wants to sign
S: # I did ask the user for the passphrase
S: INQUIRE HASHVAL
C: D ABCDEF012345678901234
C: END
S: # signature follows
S: D (sig-val rsa (s 45435453654612121212))
S: OK

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent GENKEY, Next: Agent IMPORT, Prev: Agent PKSIGN, Up: Agent Protocol

2.6.3 Generating a Key
----------------------

This is used to create a new keypair and store the secret key inside the
active PSE -- which is in most cases a Soft-PSE. An not yet defined
option allows to choose the storage location. To get the secret key out
of the PSE, a special export tool has to be used.

GENKEY

Invokes the key generation process and the server will then inquire
on the generation parameters, like:

S: INQUIRE KEYPARM
C: D (genkey (rsa (nbits 1024)))
C: END

The format of the key parameters which depends on the algorithm is of
the form:

(genkey
(algo
(parameter_name_1 ....)
....
(parameter_name_n ....)))

If everything succeeds, the server returns the *public key* in a SPKI
like S-Expression like this:

(public-key
(rsa
(n <mpi>)
(e <mpi>)))

Here is an example session:

C: GENKEY
S: INQUIRE KEYPARM
C: D (genkey (rsa (nbits 1024)))
C: END
S: D (public-key
S: D (rsa (n 326487324683264) (e 10001)))
S OK key created

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent IMPORT, Next: Agent EXPORT, Prev: Agent GENKEY, Up: Agent Protocol

2.6.4 Importing a Secret Key
----------------------------

This operation is not yet supported by GpgAgent. Specialized tools are
to be used for this.

There is no actual need because we can expect that secret keys
created by a 3rd party are stored on a smartcard. If we have generated
the key ourself, we do not need to import it.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent EXPORT, Next: Agent ISTRUSTED, Prev: Agent IMPORT, Up: Agent Protocol

2.6.5 Export a Secret Key
-------------------------

Not implemented.

Should be done by an extra tool.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent ISTRUSTED, Next: Agent GET_PASSPHRASE, Prev: Agent EXPORT, Up: Agent Protocol

2.6.6 Importing a Root Certificate
----------------------------------

Actually we do not import a Root Cert but provide a way to validate any
piece of data by storing its Hash along with a description and an
identifier in the PSE. Here is the interface description:

ISTRUSTED <fingerprint>

Check whether the OpenPGP primary key or the X.509 certificate with
the given fingerprint is an ultimately trusted key or a trusted Root CA
certificate. The fingerprint should be given as a hexstring (without
any blanks or colons or whatever in between) and may be left padded with
00 in case of an MD5 fingerprint. GPGAgent will answer with:

The key is in the table of trusted keys.

ERR 304 (Not Trusted)

The key is not in this table.

Gpg needs the entire list of trusted keys to maintain the web of
trust; the following command is therefore quite helpful:

LISTTRUSTED

GpgAgent returns a list of trusted keys line by line:

S: D 000000001234454556565656677878AF2F1ECCFF P
S: D 340387563485634856435645634856438576457A P
S: D FEDC6532453745367FD83474357495743757435D S
S: OK

The first item on a line is the hexified fingerprint where MD5
fingerprints are '00' padded to the left and the second item is a flag
to indicate the type of key (so that gpg is able to only take care of
PGP keys). P = OpenPGP, S = S/MIME. A client should ignore the rest of
the line, so that we can extend the format in the future.

Finally a client should be able to mark a key as trusted:

MARKTRUSTED FINGERPRINT "P"|"S"

The server will then pop up a window to ask the user whether she
really trusts this key. For this it will probably ask for a text to be
displayed like this:

S: INQUIRE TRUSTDESC
C: D Do you trust the key with the fingerprint @FPR@
C: D bla fasel blurb.
C: END
S: OK

Known sequences with the pattern @foo@ are replaced according to this
table:

'@FPR16@'
Format the fingerprint according to gpg rules for a v3 keys.
'@FPR20@'
Format the fingerprint according to gpg rules for a v4 keys.
'@FPR@'
Choose an appropriate format to format the fingerprint.
'@@'
Replaced by a single '@'

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent GET_PASSPHRASE, Next: Agent CLEAR_PASSPHRASE, Prev: Agent ISTRUSTED, Up: Agent Protocol

2.6.7 Ask for a passphrase
--------------------------

This function is usually used to ask for a passphrase to be used for
conventional encryption, but may also be used by programs which need
special handling of passphrases. This command uses a syntax which helps
clients to use the agent with minimum effort.

GET_PASSPHRASE [--data] [--check] [--no-ask] [--repeat[=N]] [--qualitybar] CACHE_ID [ERROR_MESSAGE PROMPT DESCRIPTION]

CACHE_ID is expected to be a string used to identify a cached
passphrase. Use a 'X' to bypass the cache. With no other arguments the
agent returns a cached passphrase or an error. By convention either the
hexified fingerprint of the key shall be used for CACHE_ID or an
arbitrary string prefixed with the name of the calling application and a
colon: Like 'gpg:somestring'.

ERROR_MESSAGE is either a single 'X' for no error message or a string
to be shown as an error message like (e.g. "invalid passphrase").
Blanks must be percent escaped or replaced by '+''.

PROMPT is either a single 'X' for a default prompt or the text to be
shown as the prompt. Blanks must be percent escaped or replaced by '+'.

DESCRIPTION is a text shown above the entry field. Blanks must be
percent escaped or replaced by '+'.

The agent either returns with an error or with a OK followed by the
hex encoded passphrase. Note that the length of the strings is
implicitly limited by the maximum length of a command. If the option
'--data' is used, the passphrase is not returned on the OK line but by
regular data lines; this is the preferred method.

If the option '--check' is used, the standard passphrase constraints
checks are applied. A check is not done if the passphrase has been
found in the cache.

If the option '--no-ask' is used and the passphrase is not in the
cache the user will not be asked to enter a passphrase but the error
code 'GPG_ERR_NO_DATA' is returned.

If the option '--qualitybar' is used and a minimum passphrase length
has been configured, a visual indication of the entered passphrase
quality is shown.

CLEAR_PASSPHRASE CACHE_ID

may be used to invalidate the cache entry for a passphrase. The
function returns with OK even when there is no cached passphrase.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent CLEAR_PASSPHRASE, Next: Agent GET_CONFIRMATION, Prev: Agent GET_PASSPHRASE, Up: Agent Protocol

2.6.8 Remove a cached passphrase
--------------------------------

Use this command to remove a cached passphrase.

CLEAR_PASSPHRASE <cache_id>

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent GET_CONFIRMATION, Next: Agent HAVEKEY, Prev: Agent CLEAR_PASSPHRASE, Up: Agent Protocol

2.6.9 Ask for confirmation
--------------------------

This command may be used to ask for a simple confirmation by presenting
a text and 2 buttons: Okay and Cancel.

GET_CONFIRMATION DESCRIPTION

DESCRIPTIONis displayed along with a Okay and Cancel button. Blanks
must be percent escaped or replaced by '+'. A 'X' may be used to
display confirmation dialog with a default text.

The agent either returns with an error or with a OK. Note, that the
length of DESCRIPTION is implicitly limited by the maximum length of a
command.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent HAVEKEY, Next: Agent LEARN, Prev: Agent GET_CONFIRMATION, Up: Agent Protocol

2.6.10 Check whether a key is available
---------------------------------------

This can be used to see whether a secret key is available. It does not
return any information on whether the key is somehow protected.

HAVEKEY KEYGRIPS

The agent answers either with OK or 'No_Secret_Key' (208). The
caller may want to check for other error codes as well. More than one
keygrip may be given. In this case the command returns success if at
least one of the keygrips corresponds to an available secret key.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent LEARN, Next: Agent PASSWD, Prev: Agent HAVEKEY, Up: Agent Protocol

2.6.11 Register a smartcard
---------------------------

LEARN [--send]

This command is used to register a smartcard. With the -send option
given the certificates are send back.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent PASSWD, Next: Agent UPDATESTARTUPTTY, Prev: Agent LEARN, Up: Agent Protocol

2.6.12 Change a Passphrase
--------------------------

PASSWD KEYGRIP

This command is used to interactively change the passphrase of the
key identified by the hex string KEYGRIP.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent UPDATESTARTUPTTY, Next: Agent GETEVENTCOUNTER, Prev: Agent PASSWD, Up: Agent Protocol

2.6.13 Change the standard display
----------------------------------

UPDATESTARTUPTTY

Set the startup TTY and X-DISPLAY variables to the values of this
session. This command is useful to direct future pinentry invocations
to another screen. It is only required because there is no way in the
ssh-agent protocol to convey this information.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent GETEVENTCOUNTER, Next: Agent GETINFO, Prev: Agent UPDATESTARTUPTTY, Up: Agent Protocol

2.6.14 Get the Event Counters
-----------------------------

GETEVENTCOUNTER

This function return one status line with the current values of the
event counters. The event counters are useful to avoid polling by
delaying a poll until something has changed. The values are decimal
numbers in the range '0' to 'UINT_MAX' and wrapping around to 0. The
actual values should not be relied upon; they shall only be used to
detect a change.

The currently defined counters are are:
'ANY'
Incremented with any change of any of the other counters.
'KEY'
Incremented for added or removed private keys.
'CARD'
Incremented for changes of the card readers stati.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent GETINFO, Next: Agent OPTION, Prev: Agent GETEVENTCOUNTER, Up: Agent Protocol

2.6.15 Return information about the process
-------------------------------------------

This is a multipurpose function to return a variety of information.

GETINFO WHAT

The value of WHAT specifies the kind of information returned:
'version'
Return the version of the program.
'pid'
Return the process id of the process.
'socket_name'
Return the name of the socket used to connect the agent.
'ssh_socket_name'
Return the name of the socket used for SSH connections. If SSH
support has not been enabled the error 'GPG_ERR_NO_DATA' will be
returned.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Agent OPTION, Prev: Agent GETINFO, Up: Agent Protocol

2.6.16 Set options for the session
----------------------------------

Here is a list of session options which are not yet described with other
commands. The general syntax for an Assuan option is:

OPTION KEY=VALUE

Supported KEYs are:

'agent-awareness'
This may be used to tell gpg-agent of which gpg-agent version the
client is aware of. gpg-agent uses this information to enable
features which might break older clients.

'putenv'
Change the session's environment to be used for the Pinentry.
Valid values are:

'NAME'
Delete envvar NAME
'NAME='
Set envvar NAME to the empty string
'NAME=VALUE'
Set envvar NAME to the string VALUE.

'use-cache-for-signing'
See Assuan command 'PKSIGN'.

'allow-pinentry-notify'
This does not need any value. It is used to enable the
PINENTRY_LAUNCHED inquiry.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Invoking GPG, Next: Invoking GPGSM, Prev: Invoking GPG-AGENT, Up: Top

3 Invoking GPG
**************

'gpg2' is the OpenPGP part of the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG). It is a
tool to provide digital encryption and signing services using the
OpenPGP standard. 'gpg2' features complete key management and all bells
and whistles you can expect from a decent OpenPGP implementation.

In contrast to the standalone version 'gpg', which is more suited for
server and embedded platforms, this version is commonly installed under
the name 'gpg2' and more targeted to the desktop as it requires several
other modules to be installed. The standalone version will be kept
maintained and it is possible to install both versions on the same
system. If you need to use different configuration files, you should
make use of something like 'gpg.conf-2' instead of just 'gpg.conf'.

Documentation for the old standard 'gpg' is available as a man page
and at *note GnuPG 1: (gpg)Top.

*Note Option Index::, for an index to 'gpg2''s commands and options.

* Menu:

* GPG Commands:: List of all commands.
* GPG Options:: List of all options.
* GPG Configuration:: Configuration files.
* GPG Examples:: Some usage examples.

Developer information:
* Unattended Usage of GPG:: Using 'gpg' from other programs.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPG Commands, Next: GPG Options, Up: Invoking GPG

3.1 Commands
============

Commands are not distinguished from options except for the fact that
only one command is allowed.

'gpg2' may be run with no commands, in which case it will perform a
reasonable action depending on the type of file it is given as input (an
encrypted message is decrypted, a signature is verified, a file
containing keys is listed).

Please remember that option as well as command parsing stops as soon
as a non-option is encountered, you can explicitly stop parsing by using
the special option '--'.

* Menu:

* General GPG Commands:: Commands not specific to the functionality.
* Operational GPG Commands:: Commands to select the type of operation.
* OpenPGP Key Management:: How to manage your keys.

File: gnupg.info, Node: General GPG Commands, Next: Operational GPG Commands, Up: GPG Commands

3.1.1 Commands not specific to the function
-------------------------------------------

'--version'
Print the program version and licensing information. Note that you
cannot abbreviate this command.

'--help'
'-h'
Print a usage message summarizing the most useful command line
options. Note that you cannot abbreviate this command.

'--warranty'
Print warranty information.

'--dump-options'
Print a list of all available options and commands. Note that you
cannot abbreviate this command.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Operational GPG Commands, Next: OpenPGP Key Management, Prev: General GPG Commands, Up: GPG Commands

3.1.2 Commands to select the type of operation
----------------------------------------------

'--sign'
'-s'
Make a signature. This command may be combined with '--encrypt'
(for a signed and encrypted message), '--symmetric' (for a signed
and symmetrically encrypted message), or '--encrypt' and
'--symmetric' together (for a signed message that may be decrypted
via a secret key or a passphrase). The key to be used for signing
is chosen by default or can be set with the '--local-user' and
'--default-key' options.

'--clearsign'
Make a clear text signature. The content in a clear text signature
is readable without any special software. OpenPGP software is only
needed to verify the signature. Clear text signatures may modify
end-of-line whitespace for platform independence and are not
intended to be reversible. The key to be used for signing is
chosen by default or can be set with the '--local-user' and
'--default-key' options.

'--detach-sign'
'-b'
Make a detached signature.

'--encrypt'
'-e'
Encrypt data. This option may be combined with '--sign' (for a
signed and encrypted message), '--symmetric' (for a message that
may be decrypted via a secret key or a passphrase), or '--sign' and
'--symmetric' together (for a signed message that may be decrypted
via a secret key or a passphrase).

'--symmetric'
'-c'
Encrypt with a symmetric cipher using a passphrase. The default
symmetric cipher used is CAST5, but may be chosen with the
'--cipher-algo' option. This option may be combined with '--sign'
(for a signed and symmetrically encrypted message), '--encrypt'
(for a message that may be decrypted via a secret key or a
passphrase), or '--sign' and '--encrypt' together (for a signed
message that may be decrypted via a secret key or a passphrase).

'--store'
Store only (make a simple RFC1991 literal data packet).

'--decrypt'
'-d'
Decrypt the file given on the command line (or STDIN if no file is
specified) and write it to STDOUT (or the file specified with
'--output'). If the decrypted file is signed, the signature is
also verified. This command differs from the default operation, as
it never writes to the filename which is included in the file and
it rejects files which don't begin with an encrypted message.

'--verify'
Assume that the first argument is a signed file or a detached
signature and verify it without generating any output. With no
arguments, the signature packet is read from STDIN. If only a
sigfile is given, it may be a complete signature or a detached
signature, in which case the signed stuff is expected in a file
without the ".sig" or ".asc" extension. With more than 1 argument,
the first should be a detached signature and the remaining files
are the signed stuff. To read the signed stuff from STDIN, use '-'
as the second filename. For security reasons a detached signature
cannot read the signed material from STDIN without denoting it in
the above way.

Note: When verifying a cleartext signature, 'gpg' verifies only
what makes up the cleartext signed data and not any extra data
outside of the cleartext signature or header lines following
directly the dash marker line. The option '--output' may be used
to write out the actual signed data; but there are other pitfalls
with this format as well. It is suggested to avoid cleartext
signatures in favor of detached signatures.

'--multifile'
This modifies certain other commands to accept multiple files for
processing on the command line or read from STDIN with each
filename on a separate line. This allows for many files to be
processed at once. '--multifile' may currently be used along with
'--verify', '--encrypt', and '--decrypt'. Note that '--multifile
--verify' may not be used with detached signatures.

'--verify-files'
Identical to '--multifile --verify'.

'--encrypt-files'
Identical to '--multifile --encrypt'.

'--decrypt-files'
Identical to '--multifile --decrypt'.

'--list-keys'
'-k'
'--list-public-keys'
List all keys from the public keyrings, or just the keys given on
the command line.

Avoid using the output of this command in scripts or other programs
as it is likely to change as GnuPG changes. See '--with-colons'
for a machine-parseable key listing command that is appropriate for
use in scripts and other programs.

'--list-secret-keys'
'-K'
List all keys from the secret keyrings, or just the ones given on
the command line. A '#' after the letters 'sec' means that the
secret key is not usable (for example, if it was created via
'--export-secret-subkeys').

'--list-sigs'
Same as '--list-keys', but the signatures are listed too. This
command has the same effect as using '--list-keys' with
'--with-sig-list'.

For each signature listed, there are several flags in between the
"sig" tag and keyid. These flags give additional information about
each signature. From left to right, they are the numbers 1-3 for
certificate check level (see '--ask-cert-level'), "L" for a local
or non-exportable signature (see '--lsign-key'), "R" for a
nonRevocable signature (see the '--edit-key' command "nrsign"), "P"
for a signature that contains a policy URL (see
'--cert-policy-url'), "N" for a signature that contains a notation
(see '--cert-notation'), "X" for an eXpired signature (see
'--ask-cert-expire'), and the numbers 1-9 or "T" for 10 and above
to indicate trust signature levels (see the '--edit-key' command
"tsign").

'--check-sigs'
Same as '--list-sigs', but the signatures are verified. Note that
for performance reasons the revocation status of a signing key is
not shown. This command has the same effect as using '--list-keys'
with '--with-sig-check'.

The status of the verification is indicated by a flag directly
following the "sig" tag (and thus before the flags described above
for '--list-sigs'). A "!" indicates that the signature has been
successfully verified, a "-" denotes a bad signature and a "%" is
used if an error occurred while checking the signature (e.g. a non
supported algorithm).

'--locate-keys'
Locate the keys given as arguments. This command basically uses
the same algorithm as used when locating keys for encryption or
signing and may thus be used to see what keys 'gpg2' might use. In
particular external methods as defined by '--auto-key-locate' may
be used to locate a key. Only public keys are listed.

'--fingerprint'
List all keys (or the specified ones) along with their
fingerprints. This is the same output as '--list-keys' but with
the additional output of a line with the fingerprint. May also be
combined with '--list-sigs' or '--check-sigs'. If this command is
given twice, the fingerprints of all secondary keys are listed too.

'--list-packets'
List only the sequence of packets. This is mainly useful for
debugging.

'--card-edit'
Present a menu to work with a smartcard. The subcommand "help"
provides an overview on available commands. For a detailed
description, please see the Card HOWTO at
https://gnupg.org/documentation/howtos.html#GnuPG-cardHOWTO .

'--card-status'
Show the content of the smart card.

'--change-pin'
Present a menu to allow changing the PIN of a smartcard. This
functionality is also available as the subcommand "passwd" with the
'--card-edit' command.

'--delete-key name'
Remove key from the public keyring. In batch mode either '--yes'
is required or the key must be specified by fingerprint. This is a
safeguard against accidental deletion of multiple keys.

'--delete-secret-key name'
Remove key from the secret keyring. In batch mode the key must be
specified by fingerprint.

'--delete-secret-and-public-key name'
Same as '--delete-key', but if a secret key exists, it will be
removed first. In batch mode the key must be specified by
fingerprint.

'--export'
Either export all keys from all keyrings (default keyrings and
those registered via option '--keyring'), or if at least one name
is given, those of the given name. The exported keys are written
to STDOUT or to the file given with option '--output'. Use
together with '--armor' to mail those keys.

'--send-keys key IDs'
Similar to '--export' but sends the keys to a keyserver.
Fingerprints may be used instead of key IDs. Option '--keyserver'
must be used to give the name of this keyserver. Don't send your
complete keyring to a keyserver -- select only those keys which are
new or changed by you. If no key IDs are given, 'gpg' does
nothing.

'--export-secret-keys'
'--export-secret-subkeys'
Same as '--export', but exports the secret keys instead. The
exported keys are written to STDOUT or to the file given with
option '--output'. This command is often used along with the
option '--armor' to allow easy printing of the key for paper
backup; however the external tool 'paperkey' does a better job for
creating backups on paper. Note that exporting a secret key can be
a security risk if the exported keys are send over an insecure
channel.

The second form of the command has the special property to render
the secret part of the primary key useless; this is a GNU extension
to OpenPGP and other implementations can not be expected to
successfully import such a key. Its intended use is to generated a
full key with an additional signing subkey on a dedicated machine
and then using this command to export the key without the primary
key to the main machine.

See the option '--simple-sk-checksum' if you want to import an
exported secret key into ancient OpenPGP implementations.

'--import'
'--fast-import'
Import/merge keys. This adds the given keys to the keyring. The
fast version is currently just a synonym.

There are a few other options which control how this command works.
Most notable here is the '--import-options merge-only' option which
does not insert new keys but does only the merging of new
signatures, user-IDs and subkeys.

'--recv-keys key IDs'
Import the keys with the given key IDs from a keyserver. Option
'--keyserver' must be used to give the name of this keyserver.

'--refresh-keys'
Request updates from a keyserver for keys that already exist on the
local keyring. This is useful for updating a key with the latest
signatures, user IDs, etc. Calling this with no arguments will
refresh the entire keyring. Option '--keyserver' must be used to
give the name of the keyserver for all keys that do not have
preferred keyservers set (see '--keyserver-options
honor-keyserver-url').

'--search-keys names'
Search the keyserver for the given names. Multiple names given
here will be joined together to create the search string for the
keyserver. Option '--keyserver' must be used to give the name of
this keyserver. Keyservers that support different search methods
allow using the syntax specified in "How to specify a user ID"
below. Note that different keyserver types support different
search methods. Currently only LDAP supports them all.

'--fetch-keys URIs'
Retrieve keys located at the specified URIs. Note that different
installations of GnuPG may support different protocols (HTTP, FTP,
LDAP, etc.)

'--update-trustdb'
Do trust database maintenance. This command iterates over all keys
and builds the Web of Trust. This is an interactive command
because it may have to ask for the "ownertrust" values for keys.
The user has to give an estimation of how far she trusts the owner
of the displayed key to correctly certify (sign) other keys. GnuPG
only asks for the ownertrust value if it has not yet been assigned
to a key. Using the '--edit-key' menu, the assigned value can be
changed at any time.

'--check-trustdb'
Do trust database maintenance without user interaction. From time
to time the trust database must be updated so that expired keys or
signatures and the resulting changes in the Web of Trust can be
tracked. Normally, GnuPG will calculate when this is required and
do it automatically unless '--no-auto-check-trustdb' is set. This
command can be used to force a trust database check at any time.
The processing is identical to that of '--update-trustdb' but it
skips keys with a not yet defined "ownertrust".

For use with cron jobs, this command can be used together with
'--batch' in which case the trust database check is done only if a
check is needed. To force a run even in batch mode add the option
'--yes'.

'--export-ownertrust'
Send the ownertrust values to STDOUT. This is useful for backup
purposes as these values are the only ones which can't be
re-created from a corrupted trustdb. Example:
gpg2 --export-ownertrust > otrust.txt

'--import-ownertrust'
Update the trustdb with the ownertrust values stored in 'files' (or
STDIN if not given); existing values will be overwritten. In case
of a severely damaged trustdb and if you have a recent backup of
the ownertrust values (e.g. in the file 'otrust.txt', you may
re-create the trustdb using these commands:
cd ~/.gnupg
rm trustdb.gpg
gpg2 --import-ownertrust < otrust.txt

'--rebuild-keydb-caches'
When updating from version 1.0.6 to 1.0.7 this command should be
used to create signature caches in the keyring. It might be handy
in other situations too.

'--print-md algo'
'--print-mds'
Print message digest of algorithm ALGO for all given files or
STDIN. With the second form (or a deprecated "*" as algo) digests
for all available algorithms are printed.

'--gen-random 0|1|2 count'
Emit COUNT random bytes of the given quality level 0, 1 or 2. If
COUNT is not given or zero, an endless sequence of random bytes
will be emitted. If used with '--armor' the output will be base64
encoded. PLEASE, don't use this command unless you know what you
are doing; it may remove precious entropy from the system!

'--gen-prime mode bits'
Use the source, Luke :-). The output format is still subject to
change.

'--enarmor'
'--dearmor'
Pack or unpack an arbitrary input into/from an OpenPGP ASCII armor.
This is a GnuPG extension to OpenPGP and in general not very
useful.

File: gnupg.info, Node: OpenPGP Key Management, Prev: Operational GPG Commands, Up: GPG Commands

3.1.3 How to manage your keys
-----------------------------

This section explains the main commands for key management

'--gen-key'
Generate a new key pair. This command is normally only used
interactively.

There is an experimental feature which allows you to create keys in
batch mode. See the file 'doc/DETAILS' in the source distribution
on how to use this.

'--gen-revoke name'
Generate a revocation certificate for the complete key. To revoke
a subkey or a signature, use the '--edit' command.

'--desig-revoke name'
Generate a designated revocation certificate for a key. This
allows a user (with the permission of the keyholder) to revoke
someone else's key.

'--edit-key'
Present a menu which enables you to do most of the key management
related tasks. It expects the specification of a key on the
command line.

uid 'n'
Toggle selection of user ID or photographic user ID with index
'n'. Use '*' to select all and '0' to deselect all.

key 'n'
Toggle selection of subkey with index 'n'. Use '*' to select
all and '0' to deselect all.

sign
Make a signature on key of user 'name' If the key is not yet
signed by the default user (or the users given with -u), the
program displays the information of the key again, together
with its fingerprint and asks whether it should be signed.
This question is repeated for all users specified with -u.

lsign
Same as "sign" but the signature is marked as non-exportable
and will therefore never be used by others. This may be used
to make keys valid only in the local environment.

nrsign
Same as "sign" but the signature is marked as non-revocable
and can therefore never be revoked.

tsign
Make a trust signature. This is a signature that combines the
notions of certification (like a regular signature), and trust
(like the "trust" command). It is generally only useful in
distinct communities or groups.

Note that "l" (for local / non-exportable), "nr" (for
non-revocable, and "t" (for trust) may be freely mixed and prefixed
to "sign" to create a signature of any type desired.

delsig
Delete a signature. Note that it is not possible to retract a
signature, once it has been send to the public (i.e. to a
keyserver). In that case you better use 'revsig'.

revsig
Revoke a signature. For every signature which has been
generated by one of the secret keys, GnuPG asks whether a
revocation certificate should be generated.

check
Check the signatures on all selected user IDs.

adduid
Create an additional user ID.

addphoto
Create a photographic user ID. This will prompt for a JPEG
file that will be embedded into the user ID. Note that a very
large JPEG will make for a very large key. Also note that
some programs will display your JPEG unchanged (GnuPG), and
some programs will scale it to fit in a dialog box (PGP).

showphoto
Display the selected photographic user ID.

deluid
Delete a user ID or photographic user ID. Note that it is not
possible to retract a user id, once it has been send to the
public (i.e. to a keyserver). In that case you better use
'revuid'.

revuid
Revoke a user ID or photographic user ID.

primary
Flag the current user id as the primary one, removes the
primary user id flag from all other user ids and sets the
timestamp of all affected self-signatures one second ahead.
Note that setting a photo user ID as primary makes it primary
over other photo user IDs, and setting a regular user ID as
primary makes it primary over other regular user IDs.

keyserver
Set a preferred keyserver for the specified user ID(s). This
allows other users to know where you prefer they get your key
from. See '--keyserver-options honor-keyserver-url' for more
on how this works. Setting a value of "none" removes an
existing preferred keyserver.

notation
Set a name=value notation for the specified user ID(s). See
'--cert-notation' for more on how this works. Setting a value
of "none" removes all notations, setting a notation prefixed
with a minus sign (-) removes that notation, and setting a
notation name (without the =value) prefixed with a minus sign
removes all notations with that name.

pref
List preferences from the selected user ID. This shows the
actual preferences, without including any implied preferences.

showpref
More verbose preferences listing for the selected user ID.
This shows the preferences in effect by including the implied
preferences of 3DES (cipher), SHA-1 (digest), and Uncompressed
(compression) if they are not already included in the
preference list. In addition, the preferred keyserver and
signature notations (if any) are shown.

setpref 'string'
Set the list of user ID preferences to 'string' for all (or
just the selected) user IDs. Calling setpref with no
arguments sets the preference list to the default (either
built-in or set via '--default-preference-list'), and calling
setpref with "none" as the argument sets an empty preference
list. Use 'gpg2 --version' to get a list of available
algorithms. Note that while you can change the preferences on
an attribute user ID (aka "photo ID"), GnuPG does not select
keys via attribute user IDs so these preferences will not be
used by GnuPG.

When setting preferences, you should list the algorithms in
the order which you'd like to see them used by someone else
when encrypting a message to your key. If you don't include
3DES, it will be automatically added at the end. Note that
there are many factors that go into choosing an algorithm (for
example, your key may not be the only recipient), and so the
remote OpenPGP application being used to send to you may or
may not follow your exact chosen order for a given message.
It will, however, only choose an algorithm that is present on
the preference list of every recipient key. See also the
INTEROPERABILITY WITH OTHER OPENPGP PROGRAMS section below.

addkey
Add a subkey to this key.

addcardkey
Generate a subkey on a card and add it to this key.

keytocard
Transfer the selected secret subkey (or the primary key if no
subkey has been selected) to a smartcard. The secret key in
the keyring will be replaced by a stub if the key could be
stored successfully on the card and you use the save command
later. Only certain key types may be transferred to the card.
A sub menu allows you to select on what card to store the key.
Note that it is not possible to get that key back from the
card - if the card gets broken your secret key will be lost
unless you have a backup somewhere.

bkuptocard 'file'
Restore the given file to a card. This command may be used to
restore a backup key (as generated during card initialization)
to a new card. In almost all cases this will be the
encryption key. You should use this command only with the
corresponding public key and make sure that the file given as
argument is indeed the backup to restore. You should then
select 2 to restore as encryption key. You will first be
asked to enter the passphrase of the backup key and then for
the Admin PIN of the card.

delkey
Remove a subkey (secondart key). Note that it is not possible
to retract a subkey, once it has been send to the public (i.e.
to a keyserver). In that case you better use 'revkey'.

revkey
Revoke a subkey.

expire
Change the key or subkey expiration time. If a subkey is
selected, the expiration time of this subkey will be changed.
With no selection, the key expiration of the primary key is
changed.

trust
Change the owner trust value for the key. This updates the
trust-db immediately and no save is required.

disable
enable
Disable or enable an entire key. A disabled key can not
normally be used for encryption.

addrevoker
Add a designated revoker to the key. This takes one optional
argument: "sensitive". If a designated revoker is marked as
sensitive, it will not be exported by default (see
export-options).

passwd
Change the passphrase of the secret key.

toggle
Toggle between public and secret key listing.

clean
Compact (by removing all signatures except the selfsig) any
user ID that is no longer usable (e.g. revoked, or expired).
Then, remove any signatures that are not usable by the trust
calculations. Specifically, this removes any signature that
does not validate, any signature that is superseded by a later
signature, revoked signatures, and signatures issued by keys
that are not present on the keyring.

minimize
Make the key as small as possible. This removes all
signatures from each user ID except for the most recent
self-signature.

cross-certify
Add cross-certification signatures to signing subkeys that may
not currently have them. Cross-certification signatures
protect against a subtle attack against signing subkeys. See
'--require-cross-certification'. All new keys generated have
this signature by default, so this option is only useful to
bring older keys up to date.

save
Save all changes to the key rings and quit.

quit
Quit the program without updating the key rings.

The listing shows you the key with its secondary keys and all user
ids. The primary user id is indicated by a dot, and selected keys
or user ids are indicated by an asterisk. The trust value is
displayed with the primary key: the first is the assigned owner
trust and the second is the calculated trust value. Letters are
used for the values:

-
No ownertrust assigned / not yet calculated.

e
Trust calculation has failed; probably due to an expired key.

q
Not enough information for calculation.

n
Never trust this key.

m
Marginally trusted.

f
Fully trusted.

u
Ultimately trusted.

'--sign-key name'
Signs a public key with your secret key. This is a shortcut
version of the subcommand "sign" from '--edit'.

'--lsign-key name'
Signs a public key with your secret key but marks it as
non-exportable. This is a shortcut version of the subcommand
"lsign" from '--edit-key'.

'--passwd USER_ID'
Change the passphrase of the secret key belonging to the
certificate specified as USER_ID. This is a shortcut for the
sub-command 'passwd' of the edit key menu.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPG Options, Next: GPG Configuration, Prev: GPG Commands, Up: Invoking GPG

3.2 Option Summary
==================

'gpg2' features a bunch of options to control the exact behaviour and to
change the default configuration.

* Menu:

* GPG Configuration Options:: How to change the configuration.
* GPG Key related Options:: Key related options.
* GPG Input and Output:: Input and Output.
* OpenPGP Options:: OpenPGP protocol specific options.
* Compliance Options:: Compliance options.
* GPG Esoteric Options:: Doing things one usually don't want to do.
* Deprecated Options:: Deprecated options.

Long options can be put in an options file (default
"~/.gnupg/gpg.conf"). Short option names will not work - for example,
"armor" is a valid option for the options file, while "a" is not. Do
not write the 2 dashes, but simply the name of the option and any
required arguments. Lines with a hash ('#') as the first
non-white-space character are ignored. Commands may be put in this file
too, but that is not generally useful as the command will execute
automatically with every execution of gpg.

Please remember that option parsing stops as soon as a non-option is
encountered, you can explicitly stop parsing by using the special option
'--'.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPG Configuration Options, Next: GPG Key related Options, Up: GPG Options

3.2.1 How to change the configuration
-------------------------------------

These options are used to change the configuration and are usually found
in the option file.

'--default-key NAME'
Use NAME as the default key to sign with. If this option is not
used, the default key is the first key found in the secret keyring.
Note that '-u' or '--local-user' overrides this option.

'--default-recipient NAME'
Use NAME as default recipient if option '--recipient' is not used
and don't ask if this is a valid one. NAME must be non-empty.

'--default-recipient-self'
Use the default key as default recipient if option '--recipient' is
not used and don't ask if this is a valid one. The default key is
the first one from the secret keyring or the one set with
'--default-key'.

'--no-default-recipient'
Reset '--default-recipient' and '--default-recipient-self'.

'-v, --verbose'
Give more information during processing. If used twice, the input
data is listed in detail.

'--no-verbose'
Reset verbose level to 0.

'-q, --quiet'
Try to be as quiet as possible.

'--batch'
'--no-batch'
Use batch mode. Never ask, do not allow interactive commands.
'--no-batch' disables this option. Note that even with a filename
given on the command line, gpg might still need to read from STDIN
(in particular if gpg figures that the input is a detached
signature and no data file has been specified). Thus if you do not
want to feed data via STDIN, you should connect STDIN to
'/dev/null'.

'--no-tty'
Make sure that the TTY (terminal) is never used for any output.
This option is needed in some cases because GnuPG sometimes prints
warnings to the TTY even if '--batch' is used.

'--yes'
Assume "yes" on most questions.

'--no'
Assume "no" on most questions.

'--list-options parameters'
This is a space or comma delimited string that gives options used
when listing keys and signatures (that is, '--list-keys',
'--list-sigs', '--list-public-keys', '--list-secret-keys', and the
'--edit-key' functions). Options can be prepended with a 'no-'
(after the two dashes) to give the opposite meaning. The options
are:

show-photos
Causes '--list-keys', '--list-sigs', '--list-public-keys', and
'--list-secret-keys' to display any photo IDs attached to the
key. Defaults to no. See also '--photo-viewer'. Does not
work with '--with-colons': see '--attribute-fd' for the
appropriate way to get photo data for scripts and other
frontends.

show-policy-urls
Show policy URLs in the '--list-sigs' or '--check-sigs'
listings. Defaults to no.

show-notations
show-std-notations
show-user-notations
Show all, IETF standard, or user-defined signature notations
in the '--list-sigs' or '--check-sigs' listings. Defaults to
no.

show-keyserver-urls
Show any preferred keyserver URL in the '--list-sigs' or
'--check-sigs' listings. Defaults to no.

show-uid-validity
Display the calculated validity of user IDs during key
listings. Defaults to no.

show-unusable-uids
Show revoked and expired user IDs in key listings. Defaults
to no.

show-unusable-subkeys
Show revoked and expired subkeys in key listings. Defaults to
no.

show-keyring
Display the keyring name at the head of key listings to show
which keyring a given key resides on. Defaults to no.

show-sig-expire
Show signature expiration dates (if any) during '--list-sigs'
or '--check-sigs' listings. Defaults to no.

show-sig-subpackets
Include signature subpackets in the key listing. This option
can take an optional argument list of the subpackets to list.
If no argument is passed, list all subpackets. Defaults to
no. This option is only meaningful when using '--with-colons'
along with '--list-sigs' or '--check-sigs'.

'--verify-options parameters'
This is a space or comma delimited string that gives options used
when verifying signatures. Options can be prepended with a 'no-'
to give the opposite meaning. The options are:

show-photos
Display any photo IDs present on the key that issued the
signature. Defaults to no. See also '--photo-viewer'.

show-policy-urls
Show policy URLs in the signature being verified. Defaults to
no.

show-notations
show-std-notations
show-user-notations
Show all, IETF standard, or user-defined signature notations
in the signature being verified. Defaults to IETF standard.

show-keyserver-urls
Show any preferred keyserver URL in the signature being
verified. Defaults to no.

show-uid-validity
Display the calculated validity of the user IDs on the key
that issued the signature. Defaults to no.

show-unusable-uids
Show revoked and expired user IDs during signature
verification. Defaults to no.

show-primary-uid-only
Show only the primary user ID during signature verification.
That is all the AKA lines as well as photo Ids are not shown
with the signature verification status.

pka-lookups
Enable PKA lookups to verify sender addresses. Note that PKA
is based on DNS, and so enabling this option may disclose
information on when and what signatures are verified or to
whom data is encrypted. This is similar to the "web bug"
described for the auto-key-retrieve feature.

pka-trust-increase
Raise the trust in a signature to full if the signature passes
PKA validation. This option is only meaningful if pka-lookups
is set.

'--enable-large-rsa'
'--disable-large-rsa'
With -gen-key and -batch, enable the creation of larger RSA secret
keys than is generally recommended (up to 8192 bits). These large
keys are more expensive to use, and their signatures and
certifications are also larger.

'--enable-dsa2'
'--disable-dsa2'
Enable hash truncation for all DSA keys even for old DSA Keys up to
1024 bit. This is also the default with '--openpgp'. Note that
older versions of GnuPG also required this flag to allow the
generation of DSA larger than 1024 bit.

'--photo-viewer string'
This is the command line that should be run to view a photo ID.
"%i" will be expanded to a filename containing the photo. "%I"
does the same, except the file will not be deleted once the viewer
exits. Other flags are "%k" for the key ID, "%K" for the long key
ID, "%f" for the key fingerprint, "%t" for the extension of the
image type (e.g. "jpg"), "%T" for the MIME type of the image (e.g.
"image/jpeg"), "%v" for the single-character calculated validity of
the image being viewed (e.g. "f"), "%V" for the calculated
validity as a string (e.g. "full"), "%U" for a base32 encoded hash
of the user ID, and "%%" for an actual percent sign. If neither %i
or %I are present, then the photo will be supplied to the viewer on
standard input.

The default viewer is "xloadimage -fork -quiet -title 'KeyID 0x%k'
STDIN". Note that if your image viewer program is not secure, then
executing it from GnuPG does not make it secure.

'--exec-path string'
Sets a list of directories to search for photo viewers and
keyserver helpers. If not provided, keyserver helpers use the
compiled-in default directory, and photo viewers use the $PATH
environment variable. Note, that on W32 system this value is
ignored when searching for keyserver helpers.

'--keyring file'
Add 'file' to the current list of keyrings. If 'file' begins with
a tilde and a slash, these are replaced by the $HOME directory. If
the filename does not contain a slash, it is assumed to be in the
GnuPG home directory ("~/.gnupg" if '--homedir' or $GNUPGHOME is
not used).

Note that this adds a keyring to the current list. If the intent
is to use the specified keyring alone, use '--keyring' along with
'--no-default-keyring'.

'--secret-keyring file'
Same as '--keyring' but for the secret keyrings.

'--primary-keyring file'
Designate 'file' as the primary public keyring. This means that
newly imported keys (via '--import' or keyserver '--recv-from')
will go to this keyring.

'--trustdb-name file'
Use 'file' instead of the default trustdb. If 'file' begins with a
tilde and a slash, these are replaced by the $HOME directory. If
the filename does not contain a slash, it is assumed to be in the
GnuPG home directory ('~/.gnupg' if '--homedir' or $GNUPGHOME is
not used).

'--display-charset name'
Set the name of the native character set. This is used to convert
some informational strings like user IDs to the proper UTF-8
encoding. Note that this has nothing to do with the character set
of data to be encrypted or signed; GnuPG does not recode
user-supplied data. If this option is not used, the default
character set is determined from the current locale. A verbosity
level of 3 shows the chosen set. Valid values for 'name' are:

iso-8859-1
This is the Latin 1 set.

iso-8859-2
The Latin 2 set.

iso-8859-15
This is currently an alias for the Latin 1 set.

koi8-r
The usual Russian set (rfc1489).

utf-8
Bypass all translations and assume that the OS uses native
UTF-8 encoding.

'--utf8-strings'
'--no-utf8-strings'
Assume that command line arguments are given as UTF8 strings. The
default ('--no-utf8-strings') is to assume that arguments are
encoded in the character set as specified by '--display-charset'.
These options affect all following arguments. Both options may be
used multiple times.

'--options file'
Read options from 'file' and do not try to read them from the
default options file in the homedir (see '--homedir'). This option
is ignored if used in an options file.

'--no-options'
Shortcut for '--options /dev/null'. This option is detected before
an attempt to open an option file. Using this option will also
prevent the creation of a '~/.gnupg' homedir.

'-z n'
'--compress-level n'
'--bzip2-compress-level n'
Set compression level to 'n' for the ZIP and ZLIB compression
algorithms. The default is to use the default compression level of
zlib (normally 6). '--bzip2-compress-level' sets the compression
level for the BZIP2 compression algorithm (defaulting to 6 as
well). This is a different option from '--compress-level' since
BZIP2 uses a significant amount of memory for each additional
compression level. '-z' sets both. A value of 0 for 'n' disables
compression.

'--bzip2-decompress-lowmem'
Use a different decompression method for BZIP2 compressed files.
This alternate method uses a bit more than half the memory, but
also runs at half the speed. This is useful under extreme low
memory circumstances when the file was originally compressed at a
high '--bzip2-compress-level'.

'--mangle-dos-filenames'
'--no-mangle-dos-filenames'
Older version of Windows cannot handle filenames with more than one
dot. '--mangle-dos-filenames' causes GnuPG to replace (rather than
add to) the extension of an output filename to avoid this problem.
This option is off by default and has no effect on non-Windows
platforms.

'--ask-cert-level'
'--no-ask-cert-level'
When making a key signature, prompt for a certification level. If
this option is not specified, the certification level used is set
via '--default-cert-level'. See '--default-cert-level' for
information on the specific levels and how they are used.
'--no-ask-cert-level' disables this option. This option defaults
to no.

'--default-cert-level n'
The default to use for the check level when signing a key.

0 means you make no particular claim as to how carefully you
verified the key.

1 means you believe the key is owned by the person who claims to
own it but you could not, or did not verify the key at all. This
is useful for a "persona" verification, where you sign the key of a
pseudonymous user.

2 means you did casual verification of the key. For example, this
could mean that you verified the key fingerprint and checked the
user ID on the key against a photo ID.

3 means you did extensive verification of the key. For example,
this could mean that you verified the key fingerprint with the
owner of the key in person, and that you checked, by means of a
hard to forge document with a photo ID (such as a passport) that
the name of the key owner matches the name in the user ID on the
key, and finally that you verified (by exchange of email) that the
email address on the key belongs to the key owner.

Note that the examples given above for levels 2 and 3 are just
that: examples. In the end, it is up to you to decide just what
"casual" and "extensive" mean to you.

This option defaults to 0 (no particular claim).

'--min-cert-level'
When building the trust database, treat any signatures with a
certification level below this as invalid. Defaults to 2, which
disregards level 1 signatures. Note that level 0 "no particular
claim" signatures are always accepted.

'--trusted-key long key ID'
Assume that the specified key (which must be given as a full 8 byte
key ID) is as trustworthy as one of your own secret keys. This
option is useful if you don't want to keep your secret keys (or one
of them) online but still want to be able to check the validity of
a given recipient's or signator's key.

'--trust-model pgp|classic|direct|always|auto'
Set what trust model GnuPG should follow. The models are:

pgp
This is the Web of Trust combined with trust signatures as
used in PGP 5.x and later. This is the default trust model
when creating a new trust database.

classic
This is the standard Web of Trust as used in PGP 2.x and
earlier.

direct
Key validity is set directly by the user and not calculated
via the Web of Trust.

always
Skip key validation and assume that used keys are always fully
trusted. You generally won't use this unless you are using
some external validation scheme. This option also suppresses
the "[uncertain]" tag printed with signature checks when there
is no evidence that the user ID is bound to the key. Note
that this trust model still does not allow the use of expired,
revoked, or disabled keys.

auto
Select the trust model depending on whatever the internal
trust database says. This is the default model if such a
database already exists.

'--auto-key-locate parameters'
'--no-auto-key-locate'
GnuPG can automatically locate and retrieve keys as needed using
this option. This happens when encrypting to an email address (in
the "user@example.com" form), and there are no user@example.com
keys on the local keyring. This option takes any number of the
following mechanisms, in the order they are to be tried:

cert
Locate a key using DNS CERT, as specified in rfc4398.

pka
Locate a key using DNS PKA.

ldap
Using DNS Service Discovery, check the domain in question for
any LDAP keyservers to use. If this fails, attempt to locate
the key using the PGP Universal method of checking
'ldap://keys.(thedomain)'.

keyserver
Locate a key using whatever keyserver is defined using the
'--keyserver' option.

keyserver-URL
In addition, a keyserver URL as used in the '--keyserver'
option may be used here to query that particular keyserver.

local
Locate the key using the local keyrings. This mechanism
allows to select the order a local key lookup is done. Thus
using '--auto-key-locate local' is identical to
'--no-auto-key-locate'.

nodefault
This flag disables the standard local key lookup, done before
any of the mechanisms defined by the '--auto-key-locate' are
tried. The position of this mechanism in the list does not
matter. It is not required if 'local' is also used.

clear
Clear all defined mechanisms. This is useful to override
mechanisms given in a config file.

'--keyid-format short|0xshort|long|0xlong'
Select how to display key IDs. "short" is the traditional
8-character key ID. "long" is the more accurate (but less
convenient) 16-character key ID. Add an "0x" to either to include
an "0x" at the beginning of the key ID, as in 0x99242560. Note
that this option is ignored if the option -with-colons is used.

'--keyserver name'
Use 'name' as your keyserver. This is the server that
'--recv-keys', '--send-keys', and '--search-keys' will communicate
with to receive keys from, send keys to, and search for keys on.
The format of the 'name' is a URI:
'scheme:[//]keyservername[:port]' The scheme is the type of
keyserver: "hkp" for the HTTP (or compatible) keyservers, "ldap"
for the LDAP keyservers, or "mailto" for the Graff email keyserver.
Note that your particular installation of GnuPG may have other
keyserver types available as well. Keyserver schemes are
case-insensitive. After the keyserver name, optional keyserver
configuration options may be provided. These are the same as the
global '--keyserver-options' from below, but apply only to this
particular keyserver.

Most keyservers synchronize with each other, so there is generally
no need to send keys to more than one server. The keyserver
'hkp://keys.gnupg.net' uses round robin DNS to give a different
keyserver each time you use it.

'--keyserver-options name=value1 '
This is a space or comma delimited string that gives options for
the keyserver. Options can be prefixed with a 'no-' to give the
opposite meaning. Valid import-options or export-options may be
used here as well to apply to importing ('--recv-key') or exporting
('--send-key') a key from a keyserver. While not all options are
available for all keyserver types, some common options are:

include-revoked
When searching for a key with '--search-keys', include keys
that are marked on the keyserver as revoked. Note that not
all keyservers differentiate between revoked and unrevoked
keys, and for such keyservers this option is meaningless.
Note also that most keyservers do not have cryptographic
verification of key revocations, and so turning this option
off may result in skipping keys that are incorrectly marked as
revoked.

include-disabled
When searching for a key with '--search-keys', include keys
that are marked on the keyserver as disabled. Note that this
option is not used with HKP keyservers.

auto-key-retrieve
This option enables the automatic retrieving of keys from a
keyserver when verifying signatures made by keys that are not
on the local keyring.

Note that this option makes a "web bug" like behavior
possible. Keyserver operators can see which keys you request,
so by sending you a message signed by a brand new key (which
you naturally will not have on your local keyring), the
operator can tell both your IP address and the time when you
verified the signature.

honor-keyserver-url
When using '--refresh-keys', if the key in question has a
preferred keyserver URL, then use that preferred keyserver to
refresh the key from. In addition, if auto-key-retrieve is
set, and the signature being verified has a preferred
keyserver URL, then use that preferred keyserver to fetch the
key from. Defaults to yes.

honor-pka-record
If auto-key-retrieve is set, and the signature being verified
has a PKA record, then use the PKA information to fetch the
key. Defaults to yes.

include-subkeys
When receiving a key, include subkeys as potential targets.
Note that this option is not used with HKP keyservers, as they
do not support retrieving keys by subkey id.

use-temp-files
On most Unix-like platforms, GnuPG communicates with the
keyserver helper program via pipes, which is the most
efficient method. This option forces GnuPG to use temporary
files to communicate. On some platforms (such as Win32 and
RISC OS), this option is always enabled.

keep-temp-files
If using 'use-temp-files', do not delete the temp files after
using them. This option is useful to learn the keyserver
communication protocol by reading the temporary files.

verbose
Tell the keyserver helper program to be more verbose. This
option can be repeated multiple times to increase the
verbosity level.

timeout
Tell the keyserver helper program how long (in seconds) to try
and perform a keyserver action before giving up. Note that
performing multiple actions at the same time uses this timeout
value per action. For example, when retrieving multiple keys
via '--recv-keys', the timeout applies separately to each key
retrieval, and not to the '--recv-keys' command as a whole.
Defaults to 30 seconds.

http-proxy='value'
Set the proxy to use for HTTP and HKP keyservers. This
overrides the "http_proxy" environment variable, if any.

max-cert-size
When retrieving a key via DNS CERT, only accept keys up to
this size. Defaults to 16384 bytes.

debug
Turn on debug output in the keyserver helper program. Note
that the details of debug output depends on which keyserver
helper program is being used, and in turn, on any libraries
that the keyserver helper program uses internally (libcurl,
openldap, etc).

check-cert
Enable certificate checking if the keyserver presents one (for
hkps or ldaps). Defaults to on.

ca-cert-file
Provide a certificate store to override the system default.
Only necessary if check-cert is enabled, and the keyserver is
using a certificate that is not present in a system default
certificate list.

Note that depending on the SSL library that the keyserver
helper is built with, this may actually be a directory or a
file.

'--completes-needed n'
Number of completely trusted users to introduce a new key signer
(defaults to 1).

'--marginals-needed n'
Number of marginally trusted users to introduce a new key signer
(defaults to 3)

'--max-cert-depth n'
Maximum depth of a certification chain (default is 5).

'--simple-sk-checksum'
Secret keys are integrity protected by using a SHA-1 checksum.
This method is part of the upcoming enhanced OpenPGP specification
but GnuPG already uses it as a countermeasure against certain
attacks. Old applications don't understand this new format, so
this option may be used to switch back to the old behaviour. Using
this option bears a security risk. Note that using this option
only takes effect when the secret key is encrypted - the simplest
way to make this happen is to change the passphrase on the key
(even changing it to the same value is acceptable).

'--no-sig-cache'
Do not cache the verification status of key signatures. Caching
gives a much better performance in key listings. However, if you
suspect that your public keyring is not save against write
modifications, you can use this option to disable the caching. It
probably does not make sense to disable it because all kind of
damage can be done if someone else has write access to your public
keyring.

'--no-sig-create-check'
GnuPG normally verifies each signature right after creation to
protect against bugs and hardware malfunctions which could leak out
bits from the secret key. This extra verification needs some time
(about 115% for DSA keys), and so this option can be used to
disable it. However, due to the fact that the signature creation
needs manual interaction, this performance penalty does not matter
in most settings.

'--auto-check-trustdb'
'--no-auto-check-trustdb'
If GnuPG feels that its information about the Web of Trust has to
be updated, it automatically runs the '--check-trustdb' command
internally. This may be a time consuming process.
'--no-auto-check-trustdb' disables this option.

'--use-agent'
'--no-use-agent'
This is dummy option. 'gpg2' always requires the agent.

'--gpg-agent-info'
This is dummy option. It has no effect when used with 'gpg2'.

'--agent-program FILE'
Specify an agent program to be used for secret key operations. The
default value is the '/usr/bin/gpg-agent'. This is only used as a
fallback when the environment variable 'GPG_AGENT_INFO' is not set
or a running agent cannot be connected.

'--lock-once'
Lock the databases the first time a lock is requested and do not
release the lock until the process terminates.

'--lock-multiple'
Release the locks every time a lock is no longer needed. Use this
to override a previous '--lock-once' from a config file.

'--lock-never'
Disable locking entirely. This option should be used only in very
special environments, where it can be assured that only one process
is accessing those files. A bootable floppy with a stand-alone
encryption system will probably use this. Improper usage of this
option may lead to data and key corruption.

'--exit-on-status-write-error'
This option will cause write errors on the status FD to immediately
terminate the process. That should in fact be the default but it
never worked this way and thus we need an option to enable this, so
that the change won't break applications which close their end of a
status fd connected pipe too early. Using this option along with
'--enable-progress-filter' may be used to cleanly cancel long
running gpg operations.

'--limit-card-insert-tries n'
With 'n' greater than 0 the number of prompts asking to insert a
smartcard gets limited to N-1. Thus with a value of 1 gpg won't at
all ask to insert a card if none has been inserted at startup.
This option is useful in the configuration file in case an
application does not know about the smartcard support and waits ad
infinitum for an inserted card.

'--no-random-seed-file'
GnuPG uses a file to store its internal random pool over
invocations. This makes random generation faster; however
sometimes write operations are not desired. This option can be
used to achieve that with the cost of slower random generation.

'--no-greeting'
Suppress the initial copyright message.

'--no-secmem-warning'
Suppress the warning about "using insecure memory".

'--no-permission-warning'
Suppress the warning about unsafe file and home directory
('--homedir') permissions. Note that the permission checks that
GnuPG performs are not intended to be authoritative, but rather
they simply warn about certain common permission problems. Do not
assume that the lack of a warning means that your system is secure.

Note that the warning for unsafe '--homedir' permissions cannot be
suppressed in the gpg.conf file, as this would allow an attacker to
place an unsafe gpg.conf file in place, and use this file to
suppress warnings about itself. The '--homedir' permissions
warning may only be suppressed on the command line.

'--no-mdc-warning'
Suppress the warning about missing MDC integrity protection.

'--require-secmem'
'--no-require-secmem'
Refuse to run if GnuPG cannot get secure memory. Defaults to no
(i.e. run, but give a warning).

'--require-cross-certification'
'--no-require-cross-certification'
When verifying a signature made from a subkey, ensure that the
cross certification "back signature" on the subkey is present and
valid. This protects against a subtle attack against subkeys that
can sign. Defaults to '--require-cross-certification' for 'gpg2'.

'--expert'
'--no-expert'
Allow the user to do certain nonsensical or "silly" things like
signing an expired or revoked key, or certain potentially
incompatible things like generating unusual key types. This also
disables certain warning messages about potentially incompatible
actions. As the name implies, this option is for experts only. If
you don't fully understand the implications of what it allows you
to do, leave this off. '--no-expert' disables this option.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPG Key related Options, Next: GPG Input and Output, Prev: GPG Configuration Options, Up: GPG Options

3.2.2 Key related options
-------------------------

'--recipient NAME'
'-r'
Encrypt for user id NAME. If this option or '--hidden-recipient'
is not specified, GnuPG asks for the user-id unless
'--default-recipient' is given.

'--hidden-recipient NAME'
'-R'
Encrypt for user ID NAME, but hide the key ID of this user's key.
This option helps to hide the receiver of the message and is a
limited countermeasure against traffic analysis. If this option or
'--recipient' is not specified, GnuPG asks for the user ID unless
'--default-recipient' is given.

'--encrypt-to name'
Same as '--recipient' but this one is intended for use in the
options file and may be used with your own user-id as an
"encrypt-to-self". These keys are only used when there are other
recipients given either by use of '--recipient' or by the asked
user id. No trust checking is performed for these user ids and
even disabled keys can be used.

'--hidden-encrypt-to name'
Same as '--hidden-recipient' but this one is intended for use in
the options file and may be used with your own user-id as a hidden
"encrypt-to-self". These keys are only used when there are other
recipients given either by use of '--recipient' or by the asked
user id. No trust checking is performed for these user ids and
even disabled keys can be used.

'--no-encrypt-to'
Disable the use of all '--encrypt-to' and '--hidden-encrypt-to'
keys.

'--group name=value1 '
Sets up a named group, which is similar to aliases in email
programs. Any time the group name is a recipient ('-r' or
'--recipient'), it will be expanded to the values specified.
Multiple groups with the same name are automatically merged into a
single group.

The values are 'key IDs' or fingerprints, but any key description
is accepted. Note that a value with spaces in it will be treated
as two different values. Note also there is only one level of
expansion -- you cannot make an group that points to another group.
When used from the command line, it may be necessary to quote the
argument to this option to prevent the shell from treating it as
multiple arguments.

'--ungroup name'
Remove a given entry from the '--group' list.

'--no-groups'
Remove all entries from the '--group' list.

'--local-user NAME'
'-u'
Use NAME as the key to sign with. Note that this option overrides
'--default-key'.

'--try-all-secrets'
Don't look at the key ID as stored in the message but try all
secret keys in turn to find the right decryption key. This option
forces the behaviour as used by anonymous recipients (created by
using '--throw-keyids' or '--hidden-recipient') and might come
handy in case where an encrypted message contains a bogus key ID.

'--skip-hidden-recipients'
'--no-skip-hidden-recipients'
During decryption skip all anonymous recipients. This option helps
in the case that people use the hidden recipients feature to hide
there own encrypt-to key from others. If oneself has many secret
keys this may lead to a major annoyance because all keys are tried
in turn to decrypt soemthing which was not really intended for it.
The drawback of this option is that it is currently not possible to
decrypt a message which includes real anonymous recipients.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPG Input and Output, Next: OpenPGP Options, Prev: GPG Key related Options, Up: GPG Options

3.2.3 Input and Output
----------------------

'--armor'
'-a'
Create ASCII armored output. The default is to create the binary
OpenPGP format.

'--no-armor'
Assume the input data is not in ASCII armored format.

'--output FILE'
'-o FILE'
Write output to FILE.

'--max-output n'
This option sets a limit on the number of bytes that will be
generated when processing a file. Since OpenPGP supports various
levels of compression, it is possible that the plaintext of a given
message may be significantly larger than the original OpenPGP
message. While GnuPG works properly with such messages, there is
often a desire to set a maximum file size that will be generated
before processing is forced to stop by the OS limits. Defaults to
0, which means "no limit".

'--import-options parameters'
This is a space or comma delimited string that gives options for
importing keys. Options can be prepended with a 'no-' to give the
opposite meaning. The options are:

import-local-sigs
Allow importing key signatures marked as "local". This is not
generally useful unless a shared keyring scheme is being used.
Defaults to no.

import-keep-ownertrust
Normally possible still existing ownertrust values of a key
are cleared if a key is imported. This is in general
desirable so that a formerly deleted key does not
automatically gain an ownertrust values merely due to import.
On the other hand it is sometimes necessary to re-import a
trusted set of keys again but keeping already assigned
ownertrust values. This can be achived by using this option.

repair-pks-subkey-bug
During import, attempt to repair the damage caused by the PKS
keyserver bug (pre version 0.9.6) that mangles keys with
multiple subkeys. Note that this cannot completely repair the
damaged key as some crucial data is removed by the keyserver,
but it does at least give you back one subkey. Defaults to no
for regular '--import' and to yes for keyserver '--recv-keys'.

merge-only
During import, allow key updates to existing keys, but do not
allow any new keys to be imported. Defaults to no.

import-clean
After import, compact (remove all signatures except the
self-signature) any user IDs from the new key that are not
usable. Then, remove any signatures from the new key that are
not usable. This includes signatures that were issued by keys
that are not present on the keyring. This option is the same
as running the '--edit-key' command "clean" after import.
Defaults to no.

import-minimal
Import the smallest key possible. This removes all signatures
except the most recent self-signature on each user ID. This
option is the same as running the '--edit-key' command
"minimize" after import. Defaults to no.

'--export-options parameters'
This is a space or comma delimited string that gives options for
exporting keys. Options can be prepended with a 'no-' to give the
opposite meaning. The options are:

export-local-sigs
Allow exporting key signatures marked as "local". This is not
generally useful unless a shared keyring scheme is being used.
Defaults to no.

export-attributes
Include attribute user IDs (photo IDs) while exporting. This
is useful to export keys if they are going to be used by an
OpenPGP program that does not accept attribute user IDs.
Defaults to yes.

export-sensitive-revkeys
Include designated revoker information that was marked as
"sensitive". Defaults to no.

export-reset-subkey-passwd
When using the '--export-secret-subkeys' command, this option
resets the passphrases for all exported subkeys to empty.
This is useful when the exported subkey is to be used on an
unattended machine where a passphrase doesn't necessarily make
sense. Defaults to no.

export-clean
Compact (remove all signatures from) user IDs on the key being
exported if the user IDs are not usable. Also, do not export
any signatures that are not usable. This includes signatures
that were issued by keys that are not present on the keyring.
This option is the same as running the '--edit-key' command
"clean" before export except that the local copy of the key is
not modified. Defaults to no.

export-minimal
Export the smallest key possible. This removes all signatures
except the most recent self-signature on each user ID. This
option is the same as running the '--edit-key' command
"minimize" before export except that the local copy of the key
is not modified. Defaults to no.

'--with-colons'
Print key listings delimited by colons. Note that the output will
be encoded in UTF-8 regardless of any '--display-charset' setting.
This format is useful when GnuPG is called from scripts and other
programs as it is easily machine parsed. The details of this
format are documented in the file 'doc/DETAILS', which is included
in the GnuPG source distribution.

'--fixed-list-mode'
Do not merge primary user ID and primary key in '--with-colon'
listing mode and print all timestamps as seconds since 1970-01-01.
Since GnuPG 2.0.10, this mode is always used and thus this option
is obsolete; it does not harm to use it though.

'--with-fingerprint'
Same as the command '--fingerprint' but changes only the format of
the output and may be used together with another command.

File: gnupg.info, Node: OpenPGP Options, Next: Compliance Options, Prev: GPG Input and Output, Up: GPG Options

3.2.4 OpenPGP protocol specific options.
----------------------------------------

'-t, --textmode'
'--no-textmode'
Treat input files as text and store them in the OpenPGP canonical
text form with standard "CRLF" line endings. This also sets the
necessary flags to inform the recipient that the encrypted or
signed data is text and may need its line endings converted back to
whatever the local system uses. This option is useful when
communicating between two platforms that have different line ending
conventions (UNIX-like to Mac, Mac to Windows, etc).
'--no-textmode' disables this option, and is the default.

'--force-v3-sigs'
'--no-force-v3-sigs'
OpenPGP states that an implementation should generate v4 signatures
but PGP versions 5 through 7 only recognize v4 signatures on key
material. This option forces v3 signatures for signatures on data.
Note that this option implies '--no-ask-sig-expire', and unsets
'--sig-policy-url', '--sig-notation', and '--sig-keyserver-url', as
these features cannot be used with v3 signatures.
'--no-force-v3-sigs' disables this option. Defaults to no.

'--force-v4-certs'
'--no-force-v4-certs'
Always use v4 key signatures even on v3 keys. This option also
changes the default hash algorithm for v3 RSA keys from MD5 to
SHA-1. '--no-force-v4-certs' disables this option.

'--force-mdc'
Force the use of encryption with a modification detection code.
This is always used with the newer ciphers (those with a blocksize
greater than 64 bits), or if all of the recipient keys indicate MDC
support in their feature flags.

'--disable-mdc'
Disable the use of the modification detection code. Note that by
using this option, the encrypted message becomes vulnerable to a
message modification attack.

'--personal-cipher-preferences string'
Set the list of personal cipher preferences to 'string'. Use 'gpg2
--version' to get a list of available algorithms, and use 'none' to
set no preference at all. This allows the user to safely override
the algorithm chosen by the recipient key preferences, as GPG will
only select an algorithm that is usable by all recipients. The
most highly ranked cipher in this list is also used for the
'--symmetric' encryption command.

'--personal-digest-preferences string'
Set the list of personal digest preferences to 'string'. Use 'gpg2
--version' to get a list of available algorithms, and use 'none' to
set no preference at all. This allows the user to safely override
the algorithm chosen by the recipient key preferences, as GPG will
only select an algorithm that is usable by all recipients. The
most highly ranked digest algorithm in this list is also used when
signing without encryption (e.g. '--clearsign' or '--sign').

'--personal-compress-preferences string'
Set the list of personal compression preferences to 'string'. Use
'gpg2 --version' to get a list of available algorithms, and use
'none' to set no preference at all. This allows the user to safely
override the algorithm chosen by the recipient key preferences, as
GPG will only select an algorithm that is usable by all recipients.
The most highly ranked compression algorithm in this list is also
used when there are no recipient keys to consider (e.g.
'--symmetric').

'--s2k-cipher-algo name'
Use 'name' as the cipher algorithm used to protect secret keys.
The default cipher is CAST5. This cipher is also used for
conventional encryption if '--personal-cipher-preferences' and
'--cipher-algo' is not given.

'--s2k-digest-algo name'
Use 'name' as the digest algorithm used to mangle the passphrases.
The default algorithm is SHA-1.

'--s2k-mode n'
Selects how passphrases are mangled. If 'n' is 0 a plain
passphrase (which is not recommended) will be used, a 1 adds a salt
to the passphrase and a 3 (the default) iterates the whole process
a number of times (see -s2k-count). Unless '--rfc1991' is used,
this mode is also used for conventional encryption.

'--s2k-count n'
Specify how many times the passphrase mangling is repeated. This
value may range between 1024 and 65011712 inclusive. The default
is inquired from gpg-agent. Note that not all values in the
1024-65011712 range are legal and if an illegal value is selected,
GnuPG will round up to the nearest legal value. This option is
only meaningful if '--s2k-mode' is 3.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Compliance Options, Next: GPG Esoteric Options, Prev: OpenPGP Options, Up: GPG Options

3.2.5 Compliance options
------------------------

These options control what GnuPG is compliant to. Only one of these
options may be active at a time. Note that the default setting of this
is nearly always the correct one. See the INTEROPERABILITY WITH OTHER
OPENPGP PROGRAMS section below before using one of these options.

'--gnupg'
Use standard GnuPG behavior. This is essentially OpenPGP behavior
(see '--openpgp'), but with some additional workarounds for common
compatibility problems in different versions of PGP. This is the
default option, so it is not generally needed, but it may be useful
to override a different compliance option in the gpg.conf file.

'--openpgp'
Reset all packet, cipher and digest options to strict OpenPGP
behavior. Use this option to reset all previous options like
'--s2k-*', '--cipher-algo', '--digest-algo' and '--compress-algo'
to OpenPGP compliant values. All PGP workarounds are disabled.

'--rfc4880'
Reset all packet, cipher and digest options to strict RFC-4880
behavior. Note that this is currently the same thing as
'--openpgp'.

'--rfc2440'
Reset all packet, cipher and digest options to strict RFC-2440
behavior.

'--rfc1991'
Try to be more RFC-1991 (PGP 2.x) compliant.

'--pgp2'
Set up all options to be as PGP 2.x compliant as possible, and warn
if an action is taken (e.g. encrypting to a non-RSA key) that will
create a message that PGP 2.x will not be able to handle. Note
that 'PGP 2.x' here means 'MIT PGP 2.6.2'. There are other
versions of PGP 2.x available, but the MIT release is a good common
baseline.

This option implies '--rfc1991 --disable-mdc --no-force-v4-certs
--escape-from-lines --force-v3-sigs --allow-weak-digest-algos
--cipher-algo IDEA --digest-algo MD5 --compress-algo ZIP'. It also
disables '--textmode' when encrypting.

'--pgp6'
Set up all options to be as PGP 6 compliant as possible. This
restricts you to the ciphers IDEA (if the IDEA plugin is
installed), 3DES, and CAST5, the hashes MD5, SHA1 and RIPEMD160,
and the compression algorithms none and ZIP. This also disables
-throw-keyids, and making signatures with signing subkeys as PGP 6
does not understand signatures made by signing subkeys.

This option implies '--disable-mdc --escape-from-lines
--force-v3-sigs'.

'--pgp7'
Set up all options to be as PGP 7 compliant as possible. This is
identical to '--pgp6' except that MDCs are not disabled, and the
list of allowable ciphers is expanded to add AES128, AES192,
AES256, and TWOFISH.

'--pgp8'
Set up all options to be as PGP 8 compliant as possible. PGP 8 is
a lot closer to the OpenPGP standard than previous versions of PGP,
so all this does is disable '--throw-keyids' and set
'--escape-from-lines'. All algorithms are allowed except for the
SHA224, SHA384, and SHA512 digests.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPG Esoteric Options, Next: Deprecated Options, Prev: Compliance Options, Up: GPG Options

3.2.6 Doing things one usually doesn't want to do.
--------------------------------------------------

'-n'
'--dry-run'
Don't make any changes (this is not completely implemented).

'--list-only'
Changes the behaviour of some commands. This is like '--dry-run'
but different in some cases. The semantic of this command may be
extended in the future. Currently it only skips the actual
decryption pass and therefore enables a fast listing of the
encryption keys.

'-i'
'--interactive'
Prompt before overwriting any files.

'--debug-level LEVEL'
Select the debug level for investigating problems. LEVEL may be a
numeric value or by a keyword:

How these messages are mapped to the actual debugging flags is not
specified and may change with newer releases of this program. They
are however carefully selected to best aid in debugging.

'--debug FLAGS'
Set debugging flags. All flags are or-ed and FLAGS may be given in
C syntax (e.g. 0x0042).

'--debug-all'
Set all useful debugging flags.

'--faked-system-time EPOCH'
This option is only useful for testing; it sets the system time
back or forth to EPOCH which is the number of seconds elapsed since
the year 1970. Alternatively EPOCH may be given as a full ISO time
string (e.g. "20070924T154812").

'--enable-progress-filter'
Enable certain PROGRESS status outputs. This option allows
frontends to display a progress indicator while gpg is processing
larger files. There is a slight performance overhead using it.

'--status-fd n'
Write special status strings to the file descriptor 'n'. See the
file DETAILS in the documentation for a listing of them.

'--status-file file'
Same as '--status-fd', except the status data is written to file
'file'.

'--logger-fd n'
Write log output to file descriptor 'n' and not to STDERR.

'--log-file file'
'--logger-file file'
Same as '--logger-fd', except the logger data is written to file
'file'. Note that '--log-file' is only implemented for GnuPG-2.

'--attribute-fd n'
Write attribute subpackets to the file descriptor 'n'. This is
most useful for use with '--status-fd', since the status messages
are needed to separate out the various subpackets from the stream
delivered to the file descriptor.

'--attribute-file file'
Same as '--attribute-fd', except the attribute data is written to
file 'file'.

'--comment string'
'--no-comments'
Use 'string' as a comment string in clear text signatures and ASCII
armored messages or keys (see '--armor'). The default behavior is
not to use a comment string. '--comment' may be repeated multiple
times to get multiple comment strings. '--no-comments' removes all
comments. It is a good idea to keep the length of a single comment
below 60 characters to avoid problems with mail programs wrapping
such lines. Note that comment lines, like all other header lines,
are not protected by the signature.

'--emit-version'
'--no-emit-version'
Force inclusion of the version string in ASCII armored output. If
given once only the name of the program and the major number is
emitted (default), given twice the minor is also emitted, given
triple the micro is added, and given quad an operating system
identification is also emitted. '--no-emit-version' disables the
version line.

'--sig-notation name=value'
'--cert-notation name=value'
'-N, --set-notation name=value'
Put the name value pair into the signature as notation data.
'name' must consist only of printable characters or spaces, and
must contain a '@' character in the form keyname@domain.example.com
(substituting the appropriate keyname and domain name, of course).
This is to help prevent pollution of the IETF reserved notation
namespace. The '--expert' flag overrides the '@' check. 'value'
may be any printable string; it will be encoded in UTF8, so you
should check that your '--display-charset' is set correctly. If
you prefix 'name' with an exclamation mark (!), the notation data
will be flagged as critical (rfc4880:5.2.3.16). '--sig-notation'
sets a notation for data signatures. '--cert-notation' sets a
notation for key signatures (certifications). '--set-notation'
sets both.

There are special codes that may be used in notation names. "%k"
will be expanded into the key ID of the key being signed, "%K" into
the long key ID of the key being signed, "%f" into the fingerprint
of the key being signed, "%s" into the key ID of the key making the
signature, "%S" into the long key ID of the key making the
signature, "%g" into the fingerprint of the key making the
signature (which might be a subkey), "%p" into the fingerprint of
the primary key of the key making the signature, "%c" into the
signature count from the OpenPGP smartcard, and "%%" results in a
single "%". %k, %K, and %f are only meaningful when making a key
signature (certification), and %c is only meaningful when using the
OpenPGP smartcard.

'--sig-policy-url string'
'--cert-policy-url string'
'--set-policy-url string'
Use 'string' as a Policy URL for signatures (rfc4880:5.2.3.20). If
you prefix it with an exclamation mark (!), the policy URL packet
will be flagged as critical. '--sig-policy-url' sets a policy url
for data signatures. '--cert-policy-url' sets a policy url for key
signatures (certifications). '--set-policy-url' sets both.

The same %-expandos used for notation data are available here as
well.

'--sig-keyserver-url string'
Use 'string' as a preferred keyserver URL for data signatures. If
you prefix it with an exclamation mark (!), the keyserver URL
packet will be flagged as critical.

The same %-expandos used for notation data are available here as
well.

'--set-filename string'
Use 'string' as the filename which is stored inside messages. This
overrides the default, which is to use the actual filename of the
file being encrypted.

'--for-your-eyes-only'
'--no-for-your-eyes-only'
Set the 'for your eyes only' flag in the message. This causes
GnuPG to refuse to save the file unless the '--output' option is
given, and PGP to use a "secure viewer" with a claimed
Tempest-resistant font to display the message. This option
overrides '--set-filename'. '--no-for-your-eyes-only' disables
this option.

'--use-embedded-filename'
'--no-use-embedded-filename'
Try to create a file with a name as embedded in the data. This can
be a dangerous option as it allows to overwrite files. Defaults to
no.

'--cipher-algo name'
Use 'name' as cipher algorithm. Running the program with the
command '--version' yields a list of supported algorithms. If this
is not used the cipher algorithm is selected from the preferences
stored with the key. In general, you do not want to use this
option as it allows you to violate the OpenPGP standard.
'--personal-cipher-preferences' is the safe way to accomplish the
same thing.

'--digest-algo name'
Use 'name' as the message digest algorithm. Running the program
with the command '--version' yields a list of supported algorithms.
In general, you do not want to use this option as it allows you to
violate the OpenPGP standard. '--personal-digest-preferences' is
the safe way to accomplish the same thing.

'--compress-algo name'
Use compression algorithm 'name'. "zlib" is RFC-1950 ZLIB
compression. "zip" is RFC-1951 ZIP compression which is used by
PGP. "bzip2" is a more modern compression scheme that can compress
some things better than zip or zlib, but at the cost of more memory
used during compression and decompression. "uncompressed" or
"none" disables compression. If this option is not used, the
default behavior is to examine the recipient key preferences to see
which algorithms the recipient supports. If all else fails, ZIP is
used for maximum compatibility.

ZLIB may give better compression results than ZIP, as the
compression window size is not limited to 8k. BZIP2 may give even
better compression results than that, but will use a significantly
larger amount of memory while compressing and decompressing. This
may be significant in low memory situations. Note, however, that
PGP (all versions) only supports ZIP compression. Using any
algorithm other than ZIP or "none" will make the message unreadable
with PGP. In general, you do not want to use this option as it
allows you to violate the OpenPGP standard.
'--personal-compress-preferences' is the safe way to accomplish the
same thing.

'--cert-digest-algo name'
Use 'name' as the message digest algorithm used when signing a key.
Running the program with the command '--version' yields a list of
supported algorithms. Be aware that if you choose an algorithm
that GnuPG supports but other OpenPGP implementations do not, then
some users will not be able to use the key signatures you make, or
quite possibly your entire key.

'--disable-cipher-algo name'
Never allow the use of 'name' as cipher algorithm. The given name
will not be checked so that a later loaded algorithm will still get
disabled.

'--disable-pubkey-algo name'
Never allow the use of 'name' as public key algorithm. The given
name will not be checked so that a later loaded algorithm will
still get disabled.

'--throw-keyids'
'--no-throw-keyids'
Do not put the recipient key IDs into encrypted messages. This
helps to hide the receivers of the message and is a limited
countermeasure against traffic analysis.(1) On the receiving side,
it may slow down the decryption process because all available
secret keys must be tried. '--no-throw-keyids' disables this
option. This option is essentially the same as using
'--hidden-recipient' for all recipients.

'--not-dash-escaped'
This option changes the behavior of cleartext signatures so that
they can be used for patch files. You should not send such an
armored file via email because all spaces and line endings are
hashed too. You can not use this option for data which has 5
dashes at the beginning of a line, patch files don't have this. A
special armor header line tells GnuPG about this cleartext
signature option.

'--escape-from-lines'
'--no-escape-from-lines'
Because some mailers change lines starting with "From " to ">From "
it is good to handle such lines in a special way when creating
cleartext signatures to prevent the mail system from breaking the
signature. Note that all other PGP versions do it this way too.
Enabled by default. '--no-escape-from-lines' disables this option.

'--passphrase-repeat n'
Specify how many times 'gpg2' will request a new passphrase be
repeated. This is useful for helping memorize a passphrase.
Defaults to 1 repetition.

'--passphrase-fd n'
Read the passphrase from file descriptor 'n'. Only the first line
will be read from file descriptor 'n'. If you use 0 for 'n', the
passphrase will be read from STDIN. This can only be used if only
one passphrase is supplied. Note that this passphrase is only used
if the option '--batch' has also been given. This is different
from 'gpg'.

'--passphrase-file file'
Read the passphrase from file 'file'. Only the first line will be
read from file 'file'. This can only be used if only one
passphrase is supplied. Obviously, a passphrase stored in a file
is of questionable security if other users can read this file.
Don't use this option if you can avoid it. Note that this
passphrase is only used if the option '--batch' has also been
given. This is different from 'gpg'.

'--passphrase string'
Use 'string' as the passphrase. This can only be used if only one
passphrase is supplied. Obviously, this is of very questionable
security on a multi-user system. Don't use this option if you can
avoid it. Note that this passphrase is only used if the option
'--batch' has also been given. This is different from 'gpg'.

'--command-fd n'
This is a replacement for the deprecated shared-memory IPC mode.
If this option is enabled, user input on questions is not expected
from the TTY but from the given file descriptor. It should be used
together with '--status-fd'. See the file doc/DETAILS in the
source distribution for details on how to use it.

'--command-file file'
Same as '--command-fd', except the commands are read out of file
'file'

'--allow-non-selfsigned-uid'
'--no-allow-non-selfsigned-uid'
Allow the import and use of keys with user IDs which are not
self-signed. This is not recommended, as a non self-signed user ID
is trivial to forge. '--no-allow-non-selfsigned-uid' disables.

'--allow-freeform-uid'
Disable all checks on the form of the user ID while generating a
new one. This option should only be used in very special
environments as it does not ensure the de-facto standard format of
user IDs.

'--ignore-time-conflict'
GnuPG normally checks that the timestamps associated with keys and
signatures have plausible values. However, sometimes a signature
seems to be older than the key due to clock problems. This option
makes these checks just a warning. See also '--ignore-valid-from'
for timestamp issues on subkeys.

'--ignore-valid-from'
GnuPG normally does not select and use subkeys created in the
future. This option allows the use of such keys and thus exhibits
the pre-1.0.7 behaviour. You should not use this option unless
there is some clock problem. See also '--ignore-time-conflict' for
timestamp issues with signatures.

'--ignore-crc-error'
The ASCII armor used by OpenPGP is protected by a CRC checksum
against transmission errors. Occasionally the CRC gets mangled
somewhere on the transmission channel but the actual content (which
is protected by the OpenPGP protocol anyway) is still okay. This
option allows GnuPG to ignore CRC errors.

'--ignore-mdc-error'
This option changes a MDC integrity protection failure into a
warning. This can be useful if a message is partially corrupt, but
it is necessary to get as much data as possible out of the corrupt
message. However, be aware that a MDC protection failure may also
mean that the message was tampered with intentionally by an
attacker.

'--allow-weak-digest-algos'
Signatures made with the broken MD5 algorithm are normally rejected
with an "invalid digest algorithm" message. This option allows the
verification of signatures made with such weak algorithms.

'--no-default-keyring'
Do not add the default keyrings to the list of keyrings. Note that
GnuPG will not operate without any keyrings, so if you use this
option and do not provide alternate keyrings via '--keyring' or
'--secret-keyring', then GnuPG will still use the default public or
secret keyrings.

'--skip-verify'
Skip the signature verification step. This may be used to make the
decryption faster if the signature verification is not needed.

'--with-key-data'
Print key listings delimited by colons (like '--with-colons') and
print the public key data.

'--fast-list-mode'
Changes the output of the list commands to work faster; this is
achieved by leaving some parts empty. Some applications don't need
the user ID and the trust information given in the listings. By
using this options they can get a faster listing. The exact
behaviour of this option may change in future versions. If you are
missing some information, don't use this option.

'--no-literal'
This is not for normal use. Use the source to see for what it
might be useful.

'--set-filesize'
This is not for normal use. Use the source to see for what it
might be useful.

'--show-session-key'
Display the session key used for one message. See
'--override-session-key' for the counterpart of this option.

We think that Key Escrow is a Bad Thing; however the user should
have the freedom to decide whether to go to prison or to reveal the
content of one specific message without compromising all messages
ever encrypted for one secret key. DON'T USE IT UNLESS YOU ARE
REALLY FORCED TO DO SO.

'--override-session-key string'
Don't use the public key but the session key 'string'. The format
of this string is the same as the one printed by
'--show-session-key'. This option is normally not used but comes
handy in case someone forces you to reveal the content of an
encrypted message; using this option you can do this without
handing out the secret key.

'--ask-sig-expire'
'--no-ask-sig-expire'
When making a data signature, prompt for an expiration time. If
this option is not specified, the expiration time set via
'--default-sig-expire' is used. '--no-ask-sig-expire' disables
this option.

'--default-sig-expire'
The default expiration time to use for signature expiration. Valid
values are "0" for no expiration, a number followed by the letter d
(for days), w (for weeks), m (for months), or y (for years) (for
example "2m" for two months, or "5y" for five years), or an
absolute date in the form YYYY-MM-DD. Defaults to "0".

'--ask-cert-expire'
'--no-ask-cert-expire'
When making a key signature, prompt for an expiration time. If
this option is not specified, the expiration time set via
'--default-cert-expire' is used. '--no-ask-cert-expire' disables
this option.

'--default-cert-expire'
The default expiration time to use for key signature expiration.
Valid values are "0" for no expiration, a number followed by the
letter d (for days), w (for weeks), m (for months), or y (for
years) (for example "2m" for two months, or "5y" for five years),
or an absolute date in the form YYYY-MM-DD. Defaults to "0".

'--allow-secret-key-import'
This is an obsolete option and is not used anywhere.

'--allow-multiple-messages'
'--no-allow-multiple-messages'
Allow processing of multiple OpenPGP messages contained in a single
file or stream. Some programs that call GPG are not prepared to
deal with multiple messages being processed together, so this
option defaults to no. Note that versions of GPG prior to 1.4.7
always allowed multiple messages.

Warning: Do not use this option unless you need it as a temporary
workaround!

'--enable-special-filenames'
This options enables a mode in which filenames of the form '-&n',
where n is a non-negative decimal number, refer to the file
descriptor n and not to a file with that name.

'--no-expensive-trust-checks'
Experimental use only.

'--preserve-permissions'
Don't change the permissions of a secret keyring back to user
read/write only. Use this option only if you really know what you
are doing.

'--default-preference-list string'
Set the list of default preferences to 'string'. This preference
list is used for new keys and becomes the default for "setpref" in
the edit menu.

'--default-keyserver-url name'
Set the default keyserver URL to 'name'. This keyserver will be
used as the keyserver URL when writing a new self-signature on a
key, which includes key generation and changing preferences.

'--list-config'
Display various internal configuration parameters of GnuPG. This
option is intended for external programs that call GnuPG to perform
tasks, and is thus not generally useful. See the file
'doc/DETAILS' in the source distribution for the details of which
configuration items may be listed. '--list-config' is only usable
with '--with-colons' set.

'--gpgconf-list'
This command is similar to '--list-config' but in general only
internally used by the 'gpgconf' tool.

'--gpgconf-test'
This is more or less dummy action. However it parses the
configuration file and returns with failure if the configuration
file would prevent 'gpg' from startup. Thus it may be used to run
a syntax check on the configuration file.

---------- Footnotes ----------

(1) Using a little social engineering anyone who is able to decrypt
the message can check whether one of the other recipients is the one he
suspects.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Deprecated Options, Prev: GPG Esoteric Options, Up: GPG Options

3.2.7 Deprecated options
------------------------

'--show-photos'
'--no-show-photos'
Causes '--list-keys', '--list-sigs', '--list-public-keys',
'--list-secret-keys', and verifying a signature to also display the
photo ID attached to the key, if any. See also '--photo-viewer'.
These options are deprecated. Use '--list-options
[no-]show-photos' and/or '--verify-options [no-]show-photos'
instead.

'--show-keyring'
Display the keyring name at the head of key listings to show which
keyring a given key resides on. This option is deprecated: use
'--list-options [no-]show-keyring' instead.

'--always-trust'
Identical to '--trust-model always'. This option is deprecated.

'--show-notation'
'--no-show-notation'
Show signature notations in the '--list-sigs' or '--check-sigs'
listings as well as when verifying a signature with a notation in
it. These options are deprecated. Use '--list-options
[no-]show-notation' and/or '--verify-options [no-]show-notation'
instead.

'--show-policy-url'
'--no-show-policy-url'
Show policy URLs in the '--list-sigs' or '--check-sigs' listings as
well as when verifying a signature with a policy URL in it. These
options are deprecated. Use '--list-options [no-]show-policy-url'
and/or '--verify-options [no-]show-policy-url' instead.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPG Configuration, Next: GPG Examples, Prev: GPG Options, Up: Invoking GPG

3.3 Configuration files
=======================

There are a few configuration files to control certain aspects of
'gpg2''s operation. Unless noted, they are expected in the current home
directory (*note option --homedir::).

'gpg.conf'
This is the standard configuration file read by 'gpg2' on startup.
It may contain any valid long option; the leading two dashes may
not be entered and the option may not be abbreviated. This default
name may be changed on the command line (*note gpg-option
--options::). You should backup this file.

For internal purposes 'gpg2' creates and maintains a few other files;
They all live in in the current home directory (*note option
--homedir::). Only the 'gpg2' may modify these files.

'~/.gnupg/pubring.gpg'
The public keyring. You should backup this file.

'~/.gnupg/pubring.gpg.lock'
The lock file for the public keyring.

'~/.gnupg/secring.gpg'
The secret keyring. You should backup this file.

'~/.gnupg/trustdb.gpg'
The trust database. There is no need to backup this file; it is
better to backup the ownertrust values (*note option
--export-ownertrust::).

'~/.gnupg/trustdb.gpg.lock'
The lock file for the trust database.

'~/.gnupg/random_seed'
A file used to preserve the state of the internal random pool.

'~/.gnupg/secring.gpg.lock'
The lock file for the secret keyring.

'/usr[/local]/share/gnupg/options.skel'
The skeleton options file.

'/usr[/local]/lib/gnupg/'
Default location for extensions.

Operation is further controlled by a few environment variables:

HOME
Used to locate the default home directory.

GNUPGHOME
If set directory used instead of "~/.gnupg".

GPG_AGENT_INFO
Used to locate the gpg-agent. The value consists of 3 colon
delimited fields: The first is the path to the Unix Domain Socket,
the second the PID of the gpg-agent and the protocol version which
should be set to 1. When starting the gpg-agent as described in
its documentation, this variable is set to the correct value. The
option '--gpg-agent-info' can be used to override it.

PINENTRY_USER_DATA
This value is passed via gpg-agent to pinentry. It is useful to
convey extra information to a custom pinentry.

COLUMNS
LINES
Used to size some displays to the full size of the screen.

LANGUAGE
Apart from its use by GNU, it is used in the W32 version to
override the language selection done through the Registry. If used
and set to a valid and available language name (LANGID), the file
with the translation is loaded from

'GPGDIR/gnupg.nls/LANGID.mo'. Here GPGDIR is the directory out of
which the gpg binary has been loaded. If it can't be loaded the
Registry is tried and as last resort the native Windows locale
system is used.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPG Examples, Next: Unattended Usage of GPG, Prev: GPG Configuration, Up: Invoking GPG

3.4 Examples
============

gpg -se -r 'Bob' 'file'
sign and encrypt for user Bob

gpg -clearsign 'file'
make a clear text signature

gpg -sb 'file'
make a detached signature

gpg -u 0x12345678 -sb 'file'
make a detached signature with the key 0x12345678

gpg -list-keys 'user_ID'
show keys

gpg -fingerprint 'user_ID'
show fingerprint

gpg -verify 'pgpfile'
gpg -verify 'sigfile'
Verify the signature of the file but do not output the data. The
second form is used for detached signatures, where 'sigfile' is the
detached signature (either ASCII armored or binary) and are the
signed data; if this is not given, the name of the file holding the
signed data is constructed by cutting off the extension (".asc" or
".sig") of 'sigfile' or by asking the user for the filename.

RETURN VALUE
************

The program returns 0 if everything was fine, 1 if at least a signature
was bad, and other error codes for fatal errors.

WARNINGS
********

Use a *good* password for your user account and a *good* passphrase to
protect your secret key. This passphrase is the weakest part of the
whole system. Programs to do dictionary attacks on your secret keyring
are very easy to write and so you should protect your "~/.gnupg/"
directory very well.

Keep in mind that, if this program is used over a network (telnet),
it is *very* easy to spy out your passphrase!

If you are going to verify detached signatures, make sure that the
program knows about it; either give both filenames on the command line
or use '-' to specify STDIN.

INTEROPERABILITY WITH OTHER OPENPGP PROGRAMS
********************************************

GnuPG tries to be a very flexible implementation of the OpenPGP
standard. In particular, GnuPG implements many of the optional parts of
the standard, such as the SHA-512 hash, and the ZLIB and BZIP2
compression algorithms. It is important to be aware that not all
OpenPGP programs implement these optional algorithms and that by forcing
their use via the '--cipher-algo', '--digest-algo',
'--cert-digest-algo', or '--compress-algo' options in GnuPG, it is
possible to create a perfectly valid OpenPGP message, but one that
cannot be read by the intended recipient.

There are dozens of variations of OpenPGP programs available, and
each supports a slightly different subset of these optional algorithms.
For example, until recently, no (unhacked) version of PGP supported the
BLOWFISH cipher algorithm. A message using BLOWFISH simply could not be
read by a PGP user. By default, GnuPG uses the standard OpenPGP
preferences system that will always do the right thing and create
messages that are usable by all recipients, regardless of which OpenPGP
program they use. Only override this safe default if you really know
what you are doing.

If you absolutely must override the safe default, or if the
preferences on a given key are invalid for some reason, you are far
better off using the '--pgp6', '--pgp7', or '--pgp8' options. These
options are safe as they do not force any particular algorithms in
violation of OpenPGP, but rather reduce the available algorithms to a
"PGP-safe" list.

BUGS
****

On older systems this program should be installed as setuid(root). This
is necessary to lock memory pages. Locking memory pages prevents the
operating system from writing memory pages (which may contain
passphrases or other sensitive material) to disk. If you get no warning
message about insecure memory your operating system supports locking
without being root. The program drops root privileges as soon as locked
memory is allocated.

Note also that some systems (especially laptops) have the ability to
"suspend to disk" (also known as "safe sleep" or "hibernate"). This
writes all memory to disk before going into a low power or even powered
off mode. Unless measures are taken in the operating system to protect
the saved memory, passphrases or other sensitive material may be
recoverable from it later.

Before you report a bug you should first search the mailing list
archives for similar problems and second check whether such a bug has
already been reported to our bug tracker at http://bugs.gnupg.org .

File: gnupg.info, Node: Unattended Usage of GPG, Prev: GPG Examples, Up: Invoking GPG

3.5 Unattended Usage
====================

'gpg' is often used as a backend engine by other software. To help with
this a machine interface has been defined to have an unambiguous way to
do this. The options '--status-fd' and '--batch' are almost always
required for this.

* Menu:

* Unattended GPG key generation:: Unattended key generation

File: gnupg.info, Node: Unattended GPG key generation, Up: Unattended Usage of GPG

3.5.1 Unattended key generation
-------------------------------

The command '--gen-key' may be used along with the option '--batch' for
unattended key generation. The parameters are either read from stdin or
given as a file on the command line. The format of the parameter file
is as follows:

* Text only, line length is limited to about 1000 characters.
* UTF-8 encoding must be used to specify non-ASCII characters.
* Empty lines are ignored.
* Leading and trailing while space is ignored.
* A hash sign as the first non white space character indicates a
comment line.
* Control statements are indicated by a leading percent sign, the
arguments are separated by white space from the keyword.
* Parameters are specified by a keyword, followed by a colon.
Arguments are separated by white space.
* The first parameter must be 'Key-Type'; control statements may be
placed anywhere.
* The order of the parameters does not matter except for 'Key-Type'
which must be the first parameter. The parameters are only used
for the generated keyblock (primary and subkeys); parameters from
previous sets are not used. Some syntactically checks may be
performed.
* Key generation takes place when either the end of the parameter
file is reached, the next 'Key-Type' parameter is encountered or at
the control statement '%commit' is encountered.

Control statements:

%echo TEXT
Print TEXT as diagnostic.

%dry-run
Suppress actual key generation (useful for syntax checking).

%commit
Perform the key generation. Note that an implicit commit is done
at the next Key-Type parameter.

%pubring FILENAME
%secring FILENAME
Do not write the key to the default or commandline given keyring
but to FILENAME. This must be given before the first commit to
take place, duplicate specification of the same filename is
ignored, the last filename before a commit is used. The filename
is used until a new filename is used (at commit points) and all
keys are written to that file. If a new filename is given, this
file is created (and overwrites an existing one). For GnuPG
versions prior to 2.1, both control statements must be given. For
GnuPG 2.1 and later '%secring' is a no-op.

%ask-passphrase
%no-ask-passphrase
Enable (or disable) a mode where the command 'passphrase' is
ignored and instead the usual passphrase dialog is used. This does
not make sense for batch key generation; however the unattended key
generation feature is also used by GUIs and this feature
relinquishes the GUI from implementing its own passphrase entry
code. These are global control statements and affect all future
key genrations.

%no-protection
Since GnuPG version 2.1 it is not anymore possible to specify a
passphrase for unattended key generation. The passphrase command
is simply ignored and '%ask-passpharse' is thus implicitly enabled.
Using this option allows the creation of keys without any
passphrase protection. This option is mainly intended for
regression tests.

%transient-key
If given the keys are created using a faster and a somewhat less
secure random number generator. This option may be used for keys
which are only used for a short time and do not require full
cryptographic strength. It takes only effect if used together with
the control statement '%no-protection'.

General Parameters:

Key-Type: ALGO
Starts a new parameter block by giving the type of the primary key.
The algorithm must be capable of signing. This is a required
parameter. ALGO may either be an OpenPGP algorithm number or a
string with the algorithm name. The special value 'default' may be
used for ALGO to create the default key type; in this case a
'Key-Usage' shall not be given and 'default' also be used for
'Subkey-Type'.

Key-Length: NBITS
The requested length of the generated key in bits. The default is
returned by running the command 'gpg2 --gpgconf-list'.

Key-Grip: HEXSTRING
This is optional and used to generate a CSR or certificate for an
already existing key. Key-Length will be ignored when given.

Key-Usage: USAGE-LIST
Space or comma delimited list of key usages. Allowed values are
'encrypt', 'sign', and 'auth'. This is used to generate the key
flags. Please make sure that the algorithm is capable of this
usage. Note that OpenPGP requires that all primary keys are
capable of certification, so no matter what usage is given here,
the 'cert' flag will be on. If no 'Key-Usage' is specified and the
'Key-Type' is not 'default', all allowed usages for that particular
algorithm are used; if it is not given but 'default' is used the
usage will be 'sign'.

Subkey-Type: ALGO
This generates a secondary key (subkey). Currently only one subkey
can be handled. See also 'Key-Type' above.

Subkey-Length: NBITS
Length of the secondary key (subkey) in bits. The default is
returned by running the command 'gpg2 --gpgconf-list'".

Subkey-Usage: USAGE-LIST
Key usage lists for a subkey; similar to 'Key-Usage'.

Passphrase: STRING
If you want to specify a passphrase for the secret key, enter it
here. Default is not to use any passphrase.

Name-Real: NAME
Name-Comment: COMMENT
Name-Email: EMAIL
The three parts of a user name. Remember to use UTF-8 encoding
here. If you don't give any of them, no user ID is created.

Expire-Date: ISO-DATE|(NUMBER[d|w|m|y])
Set the expiration date for the key (and the subkey). It may
either be entered in ISO date format (e.g. "20000815T145012") or
as number of days, weeks, month or years after the creation date.
The special notation "seconds=N" is also allowed to specify a
number of seconds since creation. Without a letter days are
assumed. Note that there is no check done on the overflow of the
type used by OpenPGP for timestamps. Thus you better make sure
that the given value make sense. Although OpenPGP works with time
intervals, GnuPG uses an absolute value internally and thus the
last year we can represent is 2105.

Ceation-Date: ISO-DATE
Set the creation date of the key as stored in the key information
and which is also part of the fingerprint calculation. Either a
date like "1986-04-26" or a full timestamp like "19860426T042640"
may be used. The time is considered to be UTC. The special
notation "seconds=N" may be used to directly specify a the number
of seconds since Epoch (Unix time). If it is not given the current
time is used.

Preferences: STRING
Set the cipher, hash, and compression preference values for this
key. This expects the same type of string as the sub-command
'setpref' in the '--edit-key' menu.

Revoker: ALGO:FPR [sensitive]
Add a designated revoker to the generated key. Algo is the public
key algorithm of the designated revoker (i.e. RSA=1, DSA=17, etc.)
FPR is the fingerprint of the designated revoker. The optional
'sensitive' flag marks the designated revoker as sensitive
information. Only v4 keys may be designated revokers.

Keyserver: STRING
This is an optional parameter that specifies the preferred
keyserver URL for the key.

Handle: STRING
This is an optional parameter only used with the status lines
KEY_CREATED and KEY_NOT_CREATED. STRING may be up to 100 characters
and should not contain spaces. It is useful for batch key
generation to associate a key parameter block with a status line.

Here is an example on how to create a key:
$ cat >foo <<EOF
%echo Generating a basic OpenPGP key
Key-Type: DSA
Key-Length: 1024
Subkey-Type: ELG-E
Subkey-Length: 1024
Name-Real: Joe Tester
Name-Comment: with stupid passphrase
Name-Email: joe@foo.bar
Expire-Date: 0
Passphrase: abc
%pubring foo.pub
%secring foo.sec
# Do a commit here, so that we can later print "done" :-)
%commit
%echo done
EOF
$ gpg2 --batch --gen-key foo
[...]
$ gpg2 --no-default-keyring --secret-keyring ./foo.sec \
--keyring ./foo.pub --list-secret-keys
/home/wk/work/gnupg-stable/scratch/foo.sec
------------------------------------------
sec 1024D/915A878D 2000-03-09 Joe Tester (with stupid passphrase) <joe@foo.bar>
ssb 1024g/8F70E2C0 2000-03-09

If you want to create a key with the default algorithms you would use
these parameters:
%echo Generating a default key
Key-Type: default
Subkey-Type: default
Name-Real: Joe Tester
Name-Comment: with stupid passphrase
Name-Email: joe@foo.bar
Expire-Date: 0
Passphrase: abc
%pubring foo.pub
%secring foo.sec
# Do a commit here, so that we can later print "done" :-)
%commit
%echo done

File: gnupg.info, Node: Invoking GPGSM, Next: Invoking SCDAEMON, Prev: Invoking GPG, Up: Top

4 Invoking GPGSM
****************

'gpgsm' is a tool similar to 'gpg' to provide digital encryption and
signing services on X.509 certificates and the CMS protocol. It is
mainly used as a backend for S/MIME mail processing. 'gpgsm' includes a
full featured certificate management and complies with all rules defined
for the German Sphinx project.

*Note Option Index::, for an index to 'GPGSM''s commands and options.

* Menu:

* GPGSM Commands:: List of all commands.
* GPGSM Options:: List of all options.
* GPGSM Configuration:: Configuration files.
* GPGSM Examples:: Some usage examples.

Developer information:
* Unattended Usage:: Using 'gpgsm' from other programs.
* GPGSM Protocol:: The protocol the server mode uses.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPGSM Commands, Next: GPGSM Options, Up: Invoking GPGSM

4.1 Commands
============

Commands are not distinguished from options except for the fact that
only one command is allowed.

* Menu:

* General GPGSM Commands:: Commands not specific to the functionality.
* Operational GPGSM Commands:: Commands to select the type of operation.
* Certificate Management:: How to manage certificates.

File: gnupg.info, Node: General GPGSM Commands, Next: Operational GPGSM Commands, Up: GPGSM Commands

4.1.1 Commands not specific to the function
-------------------------------------------

'--version'
Print the program version and licensing information. Note that you
cannot abbreviate this command.

'--help, -h'
Print a usage message summarizing the most useful command-line
options. Note that you cannot abbreviate this command.

'--warranty'
Print warranty information. Note that you cannot abbreviate this
command.

'--dump-options'
Print a list of all available options and commands. Note that you
cannot abbreviate this command.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Operational GPGSM Commands, Next: Certificate Management, Prev: General GPGSM Commands, Up: GPGSM Commands

4.1.2 Commands to select the type of operation
----------------------------------------------

'--encrypt'
Perform an encryption. The keys the data is encrypted too must be
set using the option '--recipient'.

'--decrypt'
Perform a decryption; the type of input is automatically
determined. It may either be in binary form or PEM encoded;
automatic determination of base-64 encoding is not done.

'--sign'
Create a digital signature. The key used is either the fist one
found in the keybox or those set with the '--local-user' option.

'--verify'
Check a signature file for validity. Depending on the arguments a
detached signature may also be checked.

'--server'
Run in server mode and wait for commands on the 'stdin'.

'--call-dirmngr COMMAND [ARGS]'
Behave as a Dirmngr client issuing the request COMMAND with the
optional list of ARGS. The output of the Dirmngr is printed
stdout. Please note that file names given as arguments should have
an absolute file name (i.e. commencing with '/' because they are
passed verbatim to the Dirmngr and the working directory of the
Dirmngr might not be the same as the one of this client. Currently
it is not possible to pass data via stdin to the Dirmngr. COMMAND
should not contain spaces.

This is command is required for certain maintaining tasks of the
dirmngr where a dirmngr must be able to call back to 'gpgsm'. See
the Dirmngr manual for details.

'--call-protect-tool ARGUMENTS'
Certain maintenance operations are done by an external program call
'gpg-protect-tool'; this is usually not installed in a directory
listed in the PATH variable. This command provides a simple
wrapper to access this tool. ARGUMENTS are passed verbatim to this
command; use '--help' to get a list of supported operations.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Certificate Management, Prev: Operational GPGSM Commands, Up: GPGSM Commands

4.1.3 How to manage the certificates and keys
---------------------------------------------

'--gen-key'
-This command allows the creation of a certificate signing request.
It -is commonly used along with the '--output' option to save the
-created CSR into a file. If used with the '--batch' a parameter
-file is used to create the CSR.

'--list-keys'
'-k'
List all available certificates stored in the local key database.
Note that the displayed data might be reformatted for better human
readability and illegal characters are replaced by safe
substitutes.

'--list-secret-keys'
'-K'
List all available certificates for which a corresponding a secret
key is available.

'--list-external-keys PATTERN'
List certificates matching PATTERN using an external server. This
utilizes the 'dirmngr' service.

'--list-chain'
Same as '--list-keys' but also prints all keys making up the chain.

'--dump-cert'
'--dump-keys'
List all available certificates stored in the local key database
using a format useful mainly for debugging.

'--dump-chain'
Same as '--dump-keys' but also prints all keys making up the chain.

'--dump-secret-keys'
List all available certificates for which a corresponding a secret
key is available using a format useful mainly for debugging.

'--dump-external-keys PATTERN'
List certificates matching PATTERN using an external server. This
utilizes the 'dirmngr' service. It uses a format useful mainly for
debugging.

'--keydb-clear-some-cert-flags'
This is a debugging aid to reset certain flags in the key database
which are used to cache certain certificate stati. It is
especially useful if a bad CRL or a weird running OCSP responder
did accidentally revoke certificate. There is no security issue
with this command because 'gpgsm' always make sure that the
validity of a certificate is checked right before it is used.

'--delete-keys PATTERN'
Delete the keys matching PATTERN. Note that there is no command to
delete the secret part of the key directly. In case you need to do
this, you should run the command 'gpgsm --dump-secret-keys KEYID'
before you delete the key, copy the string of hex-digits in the
"keygrip" line and delete the file consisting of these hex-digits
and the suffix '.key' from the 'private-keys-v1.d' directory below
our GnuPG home directory (usually '~/.gnupg').

'--export [PATTERN]'
Export all certificates stored in the Keybox or those specified by
the optional PATTERN. Those pattern consist of a list of user ids
(*note how-to-specify-a-user-id::). When used along with the
'--armor' option a few informational lines are prepended before
each block. There is one limitation: As there is no commonly
agreed upon way to pack more than one certificate into an ASN.1
structure, the binary export (i.e. without using 'armor') works
only for the export of one certificate. Thus it is required to
specify a PATTERN which yields exactly one certificate. Ephemeral
certificate are only exported if all PATTERN are given as
fingerprints or keygrips.

'--export-secret-key-p12 KEY-ID'
Export the private key and the certificate identified by KEY-ID in
a PKCS#12 format. When used with the '--armor' option a few
informational lines are prepended to the output. Note, that the
PKCS#12 format is not very secure and this command is only provided
if there is no other way to exchange the private key. (*note
option --p12-charset::)

'--import [FILES]'
Import the certificates from the PEM or binary encoded files as
well as from signed-only messages. This command may also be used
to import a secret key from a PKCS#12 file.

'--learn-card'
Read information about the private keys from the smartcard and
import the certificates from there. This command utilizes the
'gpg-agent' and in turn the 'scdaemon'.

'--passwd USER_ID'
Change the passphrase of the private key belonging to the
certificate specified as USER_ID. Note, that changing the
passphrase/PIN of a smartcard is not yet supported.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPGSM Options, Next: GPGSM Configuration, Prev: GPGSM Commands, Up: Invoking GPGSM

4.2 Option Summary
==================

'GPGSM' features a bunch of options to control the exact behaviour and
to change the default configuration.

* Menu:

* Configuration Options:: How to change the configuration.
* Certificate Options:: Certificate related options.
* Input and Output:: Input and Output.
* CMS Options:: How to change how the CMS is created.
* Esoteric Options:: Doing things one usually do not want to do.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Configuration Options, Next: Certificate Options, Up: GPGSM Options

4.2.1 How to change the configuration
-------------------------------------

These options are used to change the configuration and are usually found
in the option file.

'--options FILE'
Reads configuration from FILE instead of from the default per-user
configuration file. The default configuration file is named
'gpgsm.conf' and expected in the '.gnupg' directory directly below
the home directory of the user.

'-v'
'--verbose'
Outputs additional information while running. You can increase the
verbosity by giving several verbose commands to 'gpgsm', such as
'-vv'.

'--policy-file FILENAME'
Change the default name of the policy file to FILENAME.

'--agent-program FILE'
Specify an agent program to be used for secret key operations. The
default value is the '/usr/local/bin/gpg-agent'. This is only used
as a fallback when the environment variable 'GPG_AGENT_INFO' is not
set or a running agent cannot be connected.

'--dirmngr-program FILE'
Specify a dirmngr program to be used for CRL checks. The default
value is '/usr/sbin/dirmngr'. This is only used as a fallback when
the environment variable 'DIRMNGR_INFO' is not set or a running
dirmngr cannot be connected.

'--prefer-system-dirmngr'
If a system wide 'dirmngr' is running in daemon mode, first try to
connect to this one. Fallback to a pipe based server if this does
not work. Under Windows this option is ignored because the system
dirmngr is always used.

'--disable-dirmngr'
Entirely disable the use of the Dirmngr.

'--no-secmem-warning'
Do not print a warning when the so called "secure memory" cannot be
used.

'--log-file FILE'
When running in server mode, append all logging output to FILE.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Certificate Options, Next: Input and Output, Prev: Configuration Options, Up: GPGSM Options

4.2.2 Certificate related options
---------------------------------

'--enable-policy-checks'
'--disable-policy-checks'
By default policy checks are enabled. These options may be used to
change it.

'--enable-crl-checks'
'--disable-crl-checks'
By default the CRL checks are enabled and the DirMngr is used to
check for revoked certificates. The disable option is most useful
with an off-line network connection to suppress this check.

'--enable-trusted-cert-crl-check'
'--disable-trusted-cert-crl-check'
By default the CRL for trusted root certificates are checked like
for any other certificates. This allows a CA to revoke its own
certificates voluntary without the need of putting all ever issued
certificates into a CRL. The disable option may be used to switch
this extra check off. Due to the caching done by the Dirmngr,
there will not be any noticeable performance gain. Note, that this
also disables possible OCSP checks for trusted root certificates.
A more specific way of disabling this check is by adding the
"relax" keyword to the root CA line of the 'trustlist.txt'

'--force-crl-refresh'
Tell the dirmngr to reload the CRL for each request. For better
performance, the dirmngr will actually optimize this by suppressing
the loading for short time intervals (e.g. 30 minutes). This
option is useful to make sure that a fresh CRL is available for
certificates hold in the keybox. The suggested way of doing this
is by using it along with the option '--with-validation' for a key
listing command. This option should not be used in a configuration
file.

'--enable-ocsp'
'--disable-ocsp'
By default OCSP checks are disabled. The enable option may be used
to enable OCSP checks via Dirmngr. If CRL checks are also enabled,
CRLs will be used as a fallback if for some reason an OCSP request
will not succeed. Note, that you have to allow OCSP requests in
Dirmngr's configuration too (option '--allow-ocsp') and configure
Dirmngr properly. If you do not do so you will get the error code
'Not supported'.

'--auto-issuer-key-retrieve'
If a required certificate is missing while validating the chain of
certificates, try to load that certificate from an external
location. This usually means that Dirmngr is employed to search
for the certificate. Note that this option makes a "web bug" like
behavior possible. LDAP server operators can see which keys you
request, so by sending you a message signed by a brand new key
(which you naturally will not have on your local keybox), the
operator can tell both your IP address and the time when you
verified the signature.

'--validation-model NAME'
This option changes the default validation model. The only
possible values are "shell" (which is the default), "chain" which
forces the use of the chain model and "steed" for a new simplified
model. The chain model is also used if an option in the
'trustlist.txt' or an attribute of the certificate requests it.
However the standard model (shell) is in that case always tried
first.

'--ignore-cert-extension OID'
Add OID to the list of ignored certificate extensions. The OID is
expected to be in dotted decimal form, like '2.5.29.3'. This
option may be used more than once. Critical flagged certificate
extensions matching one of the OIDs in the list are treated as if
they are actually handled and thus the certificate will not be
rejected due to an unknown critical extension. Use this option
with care because extensions are usually flagged as critical for a
reason.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Input and Output, Next: CMS Options, Prev: Certificate Options, Up: GPGSM Options

4.2.3 Input and Output
----------------------

'--armor'
'-a'
Create PEM encoded output. Default is binary output.

'--base64'
Create Base-64 encoded output; i.e. PEM without the header lines.

'--assume-armor'
Assume the input data is PEM encoded. Default is to autodetect the
encoding but this is may fail.

'--assume-base64'
Assume the input data is plain base-64 encoded.

'--assume-binary'
Assume the input data is binary encoded.

'--p12-charset NAME'
'gpgsm' uses the UTF-8 encoding when encoding passphrases for
PKCS#12 files. This option may be used to force the passphrase to
be encoded in the specified encoding NAME. This is useful if the
application used to import the key uses a different encoding and
thus will not be able to import a file generated by 'gpgsm'.
Commonly used values for NAME are 'Latin1' and 'CP850'. Note that
'gpgsm' itself automagically imports any file with a passphrase
encoded to the most commonly used encodings.

'--default-key USER_ID'
Use USER_ID as the standard key for signing. This key is used if
no other key has been defined as a signing key. Note, that the
first '--local-users' option also sets this key if it has not yet
been set; however '--default-key' always overrides this.

'--local-user USER_ID'
'-u USER_ID'
Set the user(s) to be used for signing. The default is the first
secret key found in the database.

'--recipient NAME'
'-r'
Encrypt to the user id NAME. There are several ways a user id may
be given (*note how-to-specify-a-user-id::).

'--output FILE'
'-o FILE'
Write output to FILE. The default is to write it to stdout.

'--with-key-data'
Displays extra information with the '--list-keys' commands.
Especially a line tagged 'grp' is printed which tells you the
keygrip of a key. This string is for example used as the file name
of the secret key.

'--with-validation'
When doing a key listing, do a full validation check for each key
and print the result. This is usually a slow operation because it
requires a CRL lookup and other operations.

When used along with -import, a validation of the certificate to
import is done and only imported if it succeeds the test. Note
that this does not affect an already available certificate in the
DB. This option is therefore useful to simply verify a certificate.

'--with-md5-fingerprint'
For standard key listings, also print the MD5 fingerprint of the
certificate.

'--with-keygrip'
Include the keygrip in standard key listings. Note that the
keygrip is always listed in -with-colons mode.

File: gnupg.info, Node: CMS Options, Next: Esoteric Options, Prev: Input and Output, Up: GPGSM Options

4.2.4 How to change how the CMS is created.
-------------------------------------------

'--include-certs N'
Using N of -2 includes all certificate except for the root cert, -1
includes all certs, 0 does not include any certs, 1 includes only
the signers cert and all other positive values include up to N
certificates starting with the signer cert. The default is -2.

'--cipher-algo OID'
Use the cipher algorithm with the ASN.1 object identifier OID for
encryption. For convenience the strings '3DES', 'AES' and 'AES256'
may be used instead of their OIDs. The default is '3DES'
(1.2.840.113549.3.7).

'--digest-algo name'
Use 'name' as the message digest algorithm. Usually this algorithm
is deduced from the respective signing certificate. This option
forces the use of the given algorithm and may lead to severe
interoperability problems.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Esoteric Options, Prev: CMS Options, Up: GPGSM Options

4.2.5 Doing things one usually do not want to do.
-------------------------------------------------

'--extra-digest-algo NAME'
Sometimes signatures are broken in that they announce a different
digest algorithm than actually used. 'gpgsm' uses a one-pass data
processing model and thus needs to rely on the announced digest
algorithms to properly hash the data. As a workaround this option
may be used to tell gpg to also hash the data using the algorithm
NAME; this slows processing down a little bit but allows to verify
such broken signatures. If 'gpgsm' prints an error like "digest
algo 8 has not been enabled" you may want to try this option, with
'SHA256' for NAME.

'--with-ephemeral-keys'
Include ephemeral flagged keys in the output of key listings. Note
that they are included anyway if the key specification for a
listing is given as fingerprint or keygrip.

'--debug-level LEVEL'
Select the debug level for investigating problems. LEVEL may be a
numeric value or by a keyword:

How these messages are mapped to the actual debugging flags is not
specified and may change with newer releases of this program. They
are however carefully selected to best aid in debugging.

'--debug FLAGS'
This option is only useful for debugging and the behaviour may
change at any time without notice; using '--debug-levels' is the
preferred method to select the debug verbosity. FLAGS are bit
encoded and may be given in usual C-Syntax. The currently defined
bits are:

Note, that all flags set using this option may get overridden by
'--debug-level'.

'--debug-all'
Same as '--debug=0xffffffff'

'--debug-allow-core-dump'
Usually 'gpgsm' tries to avoid dumping core by well written code
and by disabling core dumps for security reasons. However, bugs
are pretty durable beasts and to squash them it is sometimes useful
to have a core dump. This option enables core dumps unless the Bad
Thing happened before the option parsing.

'--debug-no-chain-validation'
This is actually not a debugging option but only useful as such.
It lets 'gpgsm' bypass all certificate chain validation checks.

'--debug-ignore-expiration'
This is actually not a debugging option but only useful as such.
It lets 'gpgsm' ignore all notAfter dates, this is used by the
regression tests.

'--fixed-passphrase STRING'
Supply the passphrase STRING to the gpg-protect-tool. This option
is only useful for the regression tests included with this package
and may be revised or removed at any time without notice.

'--no-common-certs-import'
Suppress the import of common certificates on keybox creation.

All the long options may also be given in the configuration file
after stripping off the two leading dashes.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPGSM Configuration, Next: GPGSM Examples, Prev: GPGSM Options, Up: Invoking GPGSM

4.3 Configuration files
=======================

There are a few configuration files to control certain aspects of
'gpgsm''s operation. Unless noted, they are expected in the current
home directory (*note option --homedir::).

'gpgsm.conf'
This is the standard configuration file read by 'gpgsm' on startup.
It may contain any valid long option; the leading two dashes may
not be entered and the option may not be abbreviated. This default
name may be changed on the command line (*note gpgsm-option
--options::). You should backup this file.

'policies.txt'
This is a list of allowed CA policies. This file should list the
object identifiers of the policies line by line. Empty lines and
lines starting with a hash mark are ignored. Policies missing in
this file and not marked as critical in the certificate will print
only a warning; certificates with policies marked as critical and
not listed in this file will fail the signature verification. You
should backup this file.

For example, to allow only the policy 2.289.9.9, the file should
look like this:

# Allowed policies
2.289.9.9

'qualified.txt'
This is the list of root certificates used for qualified
certificates. They are defined as certificates capable of creating
legally binding signatures in the same way as handwritten
signatures are. Comments start with a hash mark and empty lines
are ignored. Lines do have a length limit but this is not a
serious limitation as the format of the entries is fixed and
checked by gpgsm: A non-comment line starts with optional
whitespace, followed by exactly 40 hex character, white space and a
lowercased 2 letter country code. Additional data delimited with
by a white space is current ignored but might late be used for
other purposes.

Note that even if a certificate is listed in this file, this does
not mean that the certificate is trusted; in general the
certificates listed in this file need to be listed also in
'trustlist.txt'.

This is a global file an installed in the data directory (e.g.
'/usr/share/gnupg/qualified.txt'). GnuPG installs a suitable file
with root certificates as used in Germany. As new Root-CA
certificates may be issued over time, these entries may need to be
updated; new distributions of this software should come with an
updated list but it is still the responsibility of the
Administrator to check that this list is correct.

Everytime 'gpgsm' uses a certificate for signing or verification
this file will be consulted to check whether the certificate under
question has ultimately been issued by one of these CAs. If this
is the case the user will be informed that the verified signature
represents a legally binding ("qualified") signature. When
creating a signature using such a certificate an extra prompt will
be issued to let the user confirm that such a legally binding
signature shall really be created.

Because this software has not yet been approved for use with such
certificates, appropriate notices will be shown to indicate this
fact.

'help.txt'
This is plain text file with a few help entries used with
'pinentry' as well as a large list of help items for 'gpg' and
'gpgsm'. The standard file has English help texts; to install
localized versions use filenames like 'help.LL.txt' with LL
denoting the locale. GnuPG comes with a set of predefined help
files in the data directory (e.g. '/usr/share/gnupg/help.de.txt')
and allows overriding of any help item by help files stored in the
system configuration directory (e.g. '/etc/gnupg/help.de.txt').
For a reference of the help file's syntax, please see the installed
'help.txt' file.

'com-certs.pem'
This file is a collection of common certificates used to populated
a newly created 'pubring.kbx'. An administrator may replace this
file with a custom one. The format is a concatenation of PEM
encoded X.509 certificates. This global file is installed in the
data directory (e.g. '/usr/share/gnupg/com-certs.pem').

Note that on larger installations, it is useful to put predefined
files into the directory '/etc/skel/.gnupg/' so that newly created users
start up with a working configuration. For existing users a small
helper script is provided to create these files (*note addgnupghome::).

For internal purposes gpgsm creates and maintains a few other files;
they all live in in the current home directory (*note option
--homedir::). Only 'gpgsm' may modify these files.

'pubring.kbx'
This a database file storing the certificates as well as meta
information. For debugging purposes the tool 'kbxutil' may be used
to show the internal structure of this file. You should backup
this file.

'random_seed'
This content of this file is used to maintain the internal state of
the random number generator across invocations. The same file is
used by other programs of this software too.

'S.gpg-agent'
If this file exists and the environment variable 'GPG_AGENT_INFO'
is not set, 'gpgsm' will first try to connect to this socket for
accessing 'gpg-agent' before starting a new 'gpg-agent' instance.
Under Windows this socket (which in reality be a plain file
describing a regular TCP listening port) is the standard way of
connecting the 'gpg-agent'.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPGSM Examples, Next: Unattended Usage, Prev: GPGSM Configuration, Up: Invoking GPGSM

4.4 Examples
============

$ gpgsm -er goo@bar.net <plaintext >ciphertext

File: gnupg.info, Node: Unattended Usage, Next: GPGSM Protocol, Prev: GPGSM Examples, Up: Invoking GPGSM

4.5 Unattended Usage
====================

'gpgsm' is often used as a backend engine by other software. To help
with this a machine interface has been defined to have an unambiguous
way to do this. This is most likely used with the '--server' command
but may also be used in the standard operation mode by using the
'--status-fd' option.

* Menu:

* Automated signature checking:: Automated signature checking.
* CSR and certificate creation:: CSR and certificate creation.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Automated signature checking, Next: CSR and certificate creation, Up: Unattended Usage

4.5.1 Automated signature checking
----------------------------------

It is very important to understand the semantics used with signature
verification. Checking a signature is not as simple as it may sound and
so the operation is a bit complicated. In most cases it is required to
look at several status lines. Here is a table of all cases a signed
message may have:

The signature is valid
This does mean that the signature has been successfully verified,
the certificates are all sane. However there are two subcases with
important information: One of the certificates may have expired or
a signature of a message itself as expired. It is a sound practise
to consider such a signature still as valid but additional
information should be displayed. Depending on the subcase 'gpgsm'
will issue these status codes:
signature valid and nothing did expire
'GOODSIG', 'VALIDSIG', 'TRUST_FULLY'
signature valid but at least one certificate has expired
'EXPKEYSIG', 'VALIDSIG', 'TRUST_FULLY'
signature valid but expired
'EXPSIG', 'VALIDSIG', 'TRUST_FULLY' Note, that this case is
currently not implemented.

The signature is invalid
This means that the signature verification failed (this is an
indication of af a transfer error, a program error or tampering
with the message). 'gpgsm' issues one of these status codes
sequences:
'BADSIG'
'GOODSIG, VALIDSIG TRUST_NEVER'

Error verifying a signature
For some reason the signature could not be verified, i.e. it
cannot be decided whether the signature is valid or invalid. A
common reason for this is a missing certificate.

File: gnupg.info, Node: CSR and certificate creation, Prev: Automated signature checking, Up: Unattended Usage

4.5.2 CSR and certificate creation
----------------------------------

*Please notice*: The immediate creation of certificates is only
supported by GnuPG version 2.1 or later. With a 2.0 version you may
only create a CSR.

The command '--gen-key' may be used along with the option '--batch'
to either create a certificate signing request (CSR) or an X.509
certificate. The is controlled by a parameter file; the format of this
file is as follows:

* Text only, line length is limited to about 1000 characters.
* UTF-8 encoding must be used to specify non-ASCII characters.
* Empty lines are ignored.
* Leading and trailing while space is ignored.
* A hash sign as the first non white space character indicates a
comment line.
* Control statements are indicated by a leading percent sign, the
arguments are separated by white space from the keyword.
* Parameters are specified by a keyword, followed by a colon.
Arguments are separated by white space.
* The first parameter must be 'Key-Type', control statements may be
placed anywhere.
* The order of the parameters does not matter except for 'Key-Type'
which must be the first parameter. The parameters are only used
for the generated CSR/certificate; parameters from previous sets
are not used. Some syntactically checks may be performed.
* Key generation takes place when either the end of the parameter
file is reached, the next 'Key-Type' parameter is encountered or at
the control statement '%commit' is encountered.

Control statements:

%echo TEXT
Print TEXT as diagnostic.

%dry-run
Suppress actual key generation (useful for syntax checking).

%commit
Perform the key generation. Note that an implicit commit is done
at the next Key-Type parameter.

General Parameters:

Key-Type: ALGO
Starts a new parameter block by giving the type of the primary key.
The algorithm must be capable of signing. This is a required
parameter. The only supported value for ALGO is 'rsa'.

Key-Length: NBITS
The requested length of a generated key in bits. Defaults to 2048.

Key-Grip: HEXSTRING
This is optional and used to generate a CSR or certificatet for an
already existing key. Key-Length will be ignored when given.

Key-Usage: USAGE-LIST
Space or comma delimited list of key usage, allowed values are
'encrypt', 'sign' and 'cert'. This is used to generate the
keyUsage extension. Please make sure that the algorithm is capable
of this usage. Default is to allow encrypt and sign.

Name-DN: SUBJECT-NAME
This is the Distinguished Name (DN) of the subject in RFC-2253
format.

Name-Email: STRING
This is an email address for the altSubjectName. This parameter is
optional but may occur several times to add several email addresses
to a certificate.

Name-DNS: STRING
The is an DNS name for the altSubjectName. This parameter is
optional but may occur several times to add several DNS names to a
certificate.

Name-URI: STRING
This is an URI for the altSubjectName. This parameter is optional
but may occur several times to add several URIs to a certificate.

Additional parameters used to create a certificate (in contrast to a
certificate signing request):

Serial: SN
If this parameter is given an X.509 certificate will be generated.
SN is expected to be a hex string representing an unsigned integer
of arbitary length. The special value 'random' can be used to
create a 64 bit random serial number.

Issuer-DN: ISSUER-NAME
This is the DN name of the issuer in rfc2253 format. If it is not
set it will default to the subject DN and a special GnuPG extension
will be included in the certificate to mark it as a standalone
certificate.

Creation-Date: ISO-DATE
Not-Before: ISO-DATE
Set the notBefore date of the certificate. Either a date like
'1986-04-26' or '1986-04-26 12:00' or a standard ISO timestamp like
'19860426T042640' may be used. The time is considered to be UTC.
If it is not given the current date is used.

Expire-Date: ISO-DATE
Not-After: ISO-DATE
Set the notAfter date of the certificate. Either a date like
'2063-04-05' or '2063-04-05 17:00' or a standard ISO timestamp like
'20630405T170000' may be used. The time is considered to be UTC.
If it is not given a default value in the not too far future is
used.

Signing-Key: KEYGRIP
This gives the keygrip of the key used to sign the certificate. If
it is not given a self-signed certificate will be created. For
compatibility with future versions, it is suggested to prefix the
keygrip with a '&'.

Hash-Algo: HASH-ALGO
Use HASH-ALGO for this CSR or certificate. The supported hash
algorithms are: 'sha1', 'sha256', 'sha384' and 'sha512'; they may
also be specified with uppercase letters. The default is 'sha1'.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPGSM Protocol, Prev: Unattended Usage, Up: Invoking GPGSM

4.6 The Protocol the Server Mode Uses.
======================================

Description of the protocol used to access 'GPGSM'. 'GPGSM' does
implement the Assuan protocol and in addition provides a regular command
line interface which exhibits a full client to this protocol (but uses
internal linking). To start 'gpgsm' as a server the command line the
option '--server' must be used. Additional options are provided to
select the communication method (i.e. the name of the socket).

We assume that the connection has already been established; see the
Assuan manual for details.

* Menu:

* GPGSM ENCRYPT:: Encrypting a message.
* GPGSM DECRYPT:: Decrypting a message.
* GPGSM SIGN:: Signing a message.
* GPGSM VERIFY:: Verifying a message.
* GPGSM GENKEY:: Generating a key.
* GPGSM LISTKEYS:: List available keys.
* GPGSM EXPORT:: Export certificates.
* GPGSM IMPORT:: Import certificates.
* GPGSM DELETE:: Delete certificates.
* GPGSM GETINFO:: Information about the process

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPGSM ENCRYPT, Next: GPGSM DECRYPT, Up: GPGSM Protocol

4.6.1 Encrypting a Message
--------------------------

Before encryption can be done the recipient must be set using the
command:

RECIPIENT USERID

Set the recipient for the encryption. USERID should be the internal
representation of the key; the server may accept any other way of
specification. If this is a valid and trusted recipient the server does
respond with OK, otherwise the return is an ERR with the reason why the
recipient cannot be used, the encryption will then not be done for this
recipient. If the policy is not to encrypt at all if not all recipients
are valid, the client has to take care of this. All 'RECIPIENT'
commands are cumulative until a 'RESET' or an successful 'ENCRYPT'
command.

INPUT FD[=N] [--armor|--base64|--binary]

Set the file descriptor for the message to be encrypted to N.
Obviously the pipe must be open at that point, the server establishes
its own end. If the server returns an error the client should consider
this session failed. If N is not given, this commands uses the last
file descriptor passed to the application. *Note the assuan_sendfd
function: (assuan)fun-assuan_sendfd, on how to do descriptor passing.

The '--armor' option may be used to advice the server that the input
data is in PEM format, '--base64' advices that a raw base-64 encoding is
used, '--binary' advices of raw binary input (BER). If none of these
options is used, the server tries to figure out the used encoding, but
this may not always be correct.

OUTPUT FD[=N] [--armor|--base64]

Set the file descriptor to be used for the output (i.e. the
encrypted message). Obviously the pipe must be open at that point, the
server establishes its own end. If the server returns an error he
client should consider this session failed.

The option armor encodes the output in PEM format, the '--base64'
option applies just a base 64 encoding. No option creates binary output
(BER).

The actual encryption is done using the command

ENCRYPT

It takes the plaintext from the 'INPUT' command, writes to the
ciphertext to the file descriptor set with the 'OUTPUT' command, take
the recipients from all the recipients set so far. If this command
fails the clients should try to delete all output currently done or
otherwise mark it as invalid. 'GPGSM' does ensure that there will not
be any security problem with leftover data on the output in this case.

This command should in general not fail, as all necessary checks have
been done while setting the recipients. The input and output pipes are
closed.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPGSM DECRYPT, Next: GPGSM SIGN, Prev: GPGSM ENCRYPT, Up: GPGSM Protocol

4.6.2 Decrypting a message
--------------------------

Input and output FDs are set the same way as in encryption, but 'INPUT'
refers to the ciphertext and output to the plaintext. There is no need
to set recipients. 'GPGSM' automatically strips any S/MIME headers from
the input, so it is valid to pass an entire MIME part to the INPUT pipe.

The encryption is done by using the command

DECRYPT

It performs the decrypt operation after doing some check on the
internal state. (e.g. that all needed data has been set). Because it
utilizes the GPG-Agent for the session key decryption, there is no need
to ask the client for a protecting passphrase - GpgAgent takes care of
this by requesting this from the user.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPGSM SIGN, Next: GPGSM VERIFY, Prev: GPGSM DECRYPT, Up: GPGSM Protocol

4.6.3 Signing a Message
-----------------------

Signing is usually done with these commands:

INPUT FD[=N] [--armor|--base64|--binary]

This tells 'GPGSM' to read the data to sign from file descriptor N.

OUTPUT FD[=M] [--armor|--base64]

Write the output to file descriptor M. If a detached signature is
requested, only the signature is written.

SIGN [--detached]

Sign the data set with the INPUT command and write it to the sink set
by OUTPUT. With '--detached', a detached signature is created
(surprise).

The key used for signing is the default one or the one specified in
the configuration file. To get finer control over the keys, it is
possible to use the command

SIGNER USERID

to the signer's key. USERID should be the internal representation of
the key; the server may accept any other way of specification. If this
is a valid and trusted recipient the server does respond with OK,
otherwise the return is an ERR with the reason why the key cannot be
used, the signature will then not be created using this key. If the
policy is not to sign at all if not all keys are valid, the client has
to take care of this. All 'SIGNER' commands are cumulative until a
'RESET' is done. Note that a 'SIGN' does not reset this list of signers
which is in contrats to the 'RECIPIENT' command.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPGSM VERIFY, Next: GPGSM GENKEY, Prev: GPGSM SIGN, Up: GPGSM Protocol

4.6.4 Verifying a Message
-------------------------

To verify a mesage the command:

VERIFY

is used. It does a verify operation on the message send to the input
FD. The result is written out using status lines. If an output FD was
given, the signed text will be written to that. If the signature is a
detached one, the server will inquire about the signed material and the
client must provide it.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPGSM GENKEY, Next: GPGSM LISTKEYS, Prev: GPGSM VERIFY, Up: GPGSM Protocol

4.6.5 Generating a Key
----------------------

This is used to generate a new keypair, store the secret part in the PSE
and the public key in the key database. We will probably add optional
commands to allow the client to select whether a hardware token is used
to store the key. Configuration options to 'GPGSM' can be used to
restrict the use of this command.

GENKEY

'GPGSM' checks whether this command is allowed and then does an
INQUIRY to get the key parameters, the client should then send the key
parameters in the native format:

S: INQUIRE KEY_PARAM native
C: D foo:fgfgfg
C: D bar
C: END

Please note that the server may send Status info lines while reading
the data lines from the client. After this the key generation takes
place and the server eventually does send an ERR or OK response. Status
lines may be issued as a progress indicator.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPGSM LISTKEYS, Next: GPGSM EXPORT, Prev: GPGSM GENKEY, Up: GPGSM Protocol

4.6.6 List available keys
-------------------------

To list the keys in the internal database or using an external key
provider, the command:

LISTKEYS PATTERN

is used. To allow multiple patterns (which are ORed during the
search) quoting is required: Spaces are to be translated into "+" or
into "%20"; in turn this requires that the usual escape quoting rules
are done.

LISTSECRETKEYS PATTERN

Lists only the keys where a secret key is available.

The list commands commands are affected by the option

OPTION list-mode=MODE

where mode may be:
'0'
Use default (which is usually the same as 1).
'1'
List only the internal keys.
'2'
List only the external keys.
'3'
List internal and external keys.

Note that options are valid for the entire session.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPGSM EXPORT, Next: GPGSM IMPORT, Prev: GPGSM LISTKEYS, Up: GPGSM Protocol

4.6.7 Export certificates
-------------------------

To export certificate from the internal key database the command:

EXPORT [--data [--armor] [--base64]] [--] PATTERN

is used. To allow multiple patterns (which are ORed) quoting is
required: Spaces are to be translated into "+" or into "%20"; in turn
this requires that the usual escape quoting rules are done.

If the '--data' option has not been given, the format of the output
depends on what was set with the OUTPUT command. When using PEM
encoding a few informational lines are prepended.

If the '--data' has been given, a target set via OUTPUT is ignored
and the data is returned inline using standard 'D'-lines. This avoids
the need for an extra file descriptor. In this case the options
'--armor' and '--base64' may be used in the same way as with the OUTPUT
command.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPGSM IMPORT, Next: GPGSM DELETE, Prev: GPGSM EXPORT, Up: GPGSM Protocol

4.6.8 Import certificates
-------------------------

To import certificates into the internal key database, the command

IMPORT [--re-import]

is used. The data is expected on the file descriptor set with the
'INPUT' command. Certain checks are performed on the certificate. Note
that the code will also handle PKCS#12 files and import private keys; a
helper program is used for that.

With the option '--re-import' the input data is expected to a be a
linefeed separated list of fingerprints. The command will re-import the
corresponding certificates; that is they are made permanent by removing
their ephemeral flag.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPGSM DELETE, Next: GPGSM GETINFO, Prev: GPGSM IMPORT, Up: GPGSM Protocol

4.6.9 Delete certificates
-------------------------

To delete a certificate the command

DELKEYS PATTERN

is used. To allow multiple patterns (which are ORed) quoting is
required: Spaces are to be translated into "+" or into "%20"; in turn
this requires that the usual escape quoting rules are done.

The certificates must be specified unambiguously otherwise an error
is returned.

File: gnupg.info, Node: GPGSM GETINFO, Prev: GPGSM DELETE, Up: GPGSM Protocol

4.6.10 Return information about the process
-------------------------------------------

This is a multipurpose function to return a variety of information.

GETINFO WHAT

The value of WHAT specifies the kind of information returned:
'version'
Return the version of the program.
'pid'
Return the process id of the process.
'agent-check'
Return success if the agent is running.
'cmd_has_option CMD OPT'
Return success if the command CMD implements the option OPT. The
leading two dashes usually used with OPT shall not be given.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Invoking SCDAEMON, Next: Specify a User ID, Prev: Invoking GPGSM, Up: Top

5 Invoking the SCDAEMON
***********************

The 'scdaemon' is a daemon to manage smartcards. It is usually invoked
by 'gpg-agent' and in general not used directly.

*Note Option Index::, for an index to 'scdaemon''s commands and
options.

* Menu:

* Scdaemon Commands:: List of all commands.
* Scdaemon Options:: List of all options.
* Card applications:: Description of card applications.
* Scdaemon Configuration:: Configuration files.
* Scdaemon Examples:: Some usage examples.
* Scdaemon Protocol:: The protocol the daemon uses.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon Commands, Next: Scdaemon Options, Up: Invoking SCDAEMON

5.1 Commands
============

Commands are not distinguished from options except for the fact that
only one command is allowed.

'--version'
Print the program version and licensing information. Not that you
can abbreviate this command.

'--help, -h'
Print a usage message summarizing the most useful command-line
options. Not that you can abbreviate this command.

'--dump-options'
Print a list of all available options and commands. Not that you
can abbreviate this command.

'--server'
Run in server mode and wait for commands on the 'stdin'. This is
default mode is to create a socket and listen for commands there.

'--multi-server'
Run in server mode and wait for commands on the 'stdin' as well as
on an additional Unix Domain socket. The server command 'GETINFO'
may be used to get the name of that extra socket.

'--daemon'
Run the program in the background. This option is required to
prevent it from being accidentally running in the background.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon Options, Next: Card applications, Prev: Scdaemon Commands, Up: Invoking SCDAEMON

5.2 Option Summary
==================

'--options FILE'
Reads configuration from FILE instead of from the default per-user
configuration file. The default configuration file is named
'scdaemon.conf' and expected in the '.gnupg' directory directly
below the home directory of the user.

'-v'
'--verbose'
Outputs additional information while running. You can increase the
verbosity by giving several verbose commands to 'gpgsm', such as
'-vv'.

'--debug-level LEVEL'
Select the debug level for investigating problems. LEVEL may be a
numeric value or a keyword:

How these messages are mapped to the actual debugging flags is not
specified and may change with newer releases of this program. They
are however carefully selected to best aid in debugging.

Note: All debugging options are subject to change and thus
should not be used by any application program. As the name
says, they are only used as helpers to debug problems.

'0 (1)'
command I/O
'1 (2)'
values of big number integers
'2 (4)'
low level crypto operations
'5 (32)'
memory allocation
'6 (64)'
caching
'7 (128)'
show memory statistics.
'9 (512)'
write hashed data to files named 'dbgmd-000*'
'10 (1024)'
trace Assuan protocol. See also option
'--debug-assuan-log-cats'.
'11 (2048)'
trace APDU I/O to the card. This may reveal sensitive data.
'12 (4096)'
trace some card reader related function calls.

'--debug-all'
Same as '--debug=0xffffffff'

'--debug-wait N'
When running in server mode, wait N seconds before entering the
actual processing loop and print the pid. This gives time to
attach a debugger.

'--debug-ccid-driver'
Enable debug output from the included CCID driver for smartcards.
Using this option twice will also enable some tracing of the T=1
protocol. Note that this option may reveal sensitive data.

'--debug-disable-ticker'
This option disables all ticker functions like checking for card
insertions.

'--debug-allow-core-dump'
For security reasons we won't create a core dump when the process
aborts. For debugging purposes it is sometimes better to allow
core dump. This options enables it and also changes the working
directory to '/tmp' when running in '--server' mode.

'--debug-log-tid'
This option appends a thread ID to the PID in the log output.

'--debug-assuan-log-cats CATS'
Changes the active Libassuan logging categories to CATS. The value
for CATS is an unsigned integer given in usual C-Syntax. A value
of of 0 switches to a default category. If this option is not used
the categories are taken from the environment variable
'ASSUAN_DEBUG'. Note that this option has only an effect if the
Assuan debug flag has also been with the option '--debug'. For a
list of categories see the Libassuan manual.

'--no-detach'
Don't detach the process from the console. This is mainly useful
for debugging.

'--log-file FILE'
Append all logging output to FILE. This is very helpful in seeing
what the agent actually does.

'--pcsc-driver LIBRARY'
Use LIBRARY to access the smartcard reader. The current default is
'libpcsclite.so'. Instead of using this option you might also want
to install a symbolic link to the default file name (e.g. from
'libpcsclite.so.1').

'--ctapi-driver LIBRARY'
Use LIBRARY to access the smartcard reader. The current default is
'libtowitoko.so'. Note that the use of this interface is
deprecated; it may be removed in future releases.

'--disable-ccid'
Disable the integrated support for CCID compliant readers. This
allows to fall back to one of the other drivers even if the
internal CCID driver can handle the reader. Note, that CCID
support is only available if libusb was available at build time.

'--reader-port NUMBER_OR_STRING'
This option may be used to specify the port of the card terminal.
A value of 0 refers to the first serial device; add 32768 to access
USB devices. The default is 32768 (first USB device). PC/SC or
CCID readers might need a string here; run the program in verbose
mode to get a list of available readers. The default is then the
first reader found.

To get a list of available CCID readers you may use this command:
echo scd getinfo reader_list | gpg-connect-agent --decode | awk '/^D/ {print $2}'

'--card-timeout N'
If N is not 0 and no client is actively using the card, the card
will be powered down after N seconds. Powering down the card
avoids a potential risk of damaging a card when used with certain
cheap readers. This also allows non Scdaemon aware applications to
access the card. The disadvantage of using a card timeout is that
accessing the card takes longer and that the user needs to enter
the PIN again after the next power up.

Note that with the current version of Scdaemon the card is powered
down immediately at the next timer tick for any value of N other
than 0.

'--enable-pinpad-varlen'
Please specify this option when the card reader supports variable
length input for pinpad (default is no). For known readers (listed
in ccid-driver.c and apdu.c), this option is not needed. Note that
if your card reader doesn't supports variable length input but you
want to use it, you need to specify your pinpad request on your
card.

'--disable-pinpad'
Even if a card reader features a pinpad, do not try to use it.

'--deny-admin'
This option disables the use of admin class commands for card
applications where this is supported. Currently we support it for
the OpenPGP card. This commands is useful to inhibit accidental
access to admin class command which could ultimately lock the card
through wrong PIN numbers. Note that GnuPG versions older than
2.0.11 featured an '--allow-admin' command which was required to
use such admin commands. This option has no more effect today
because the default is now to allow admin commands.

'--disable-application NAME'
This option disables the use of the card application named NAME.
This is mainly useful for debugging or if a application with lower
priority should be used by default.

All the long options may also be given in the configuration file
after stripping off the two leading dashes.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Card applications, Next: Scdaemon Configuration, Prev: Scdaemon Options, Up: Invoking SCDAEMON

5.3 Description of card applications
====================================

'scdaemon' supports the card applications as described below.

* Menu:

* OpenPGP Card:: The OpenPGP card application
* NKS Card:: The Telesec NetKey card application
* DINSIG Card:: The DINSIG card application
* PKCS#15 Card:: The PKCS#15 card application
* Geldkarte Card:: The Geldkarte application
* Undefined Card:: The Undefined stub application

File: gnupg.info, Node: OpenPGP Card, Next: NKS Card, Up: Card applications

5.3.1 The OpenPGP card application "openpgp"
--------------------------------------------

This application is currently only used by 'gpg' but may in future also
be useful with 'gpgsm'. Version 1 and version 2 of the card is
supported.

The specifications for these cards are available at
<http://g10code.com/docs/openpgp-card-1.0.pdf> and
<http://g10code.com/docs/openpgp-card-2.0.pdf>.

File: gnupg.info, Node: NKS Card, Next: DINSIG Card, Prev: OpenPGP Card, Up: Card applications

5.3.2 The Telesec NetKey card "nks"
-----------------------------------

This is the main application of the Telesec cards as available in
Germany. It is a superset of the German DINSIG card. The card is used
by 'gpgsm'.

File: gnupg.info, Node: DINSIG Card, Next: PKCS#15 Card, Prev: NKS Card, Up: Card applications

5.3.3 The DINSIG card application "dinsig"
------------------------------------------

This is an application as described in the German draft standard _DIN V
66291-1_. It is intended to be used by cards supporting the German
signature law and its bylaws (SigG and SigV).

File: gnupg.info, Node: PKCS#15 Card, Next: Geldkarte Card, Prev: DINSIG Card, Up: Card applications

5.3.4 The PKCS#15 card application "p15"
----------------------------------------

This is common framework for smart card applications. It is used by
'gpgsm'.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Geldkarte Card, Next: Undefined Card, Prev: PKCS#15 Card, Up: Card applications

5.3.5 The Geldkarte card application "geldkarte"
------------------------------------------------

This is a simple application to display information of a German
Geldkarte. The Geldkarte is a small amount debit card application which
comes with almost all German banking cards.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Undefined Card, Prev: Geldkarte Card, Up: Card applications

5.3.6 The Undefined card application "undefined"
------------------------------------------------

This is a stub application to allow the use of the APDU command even if
no supported application is found on the card. This application is not
used automatically but must be explicitly requested using the SERIALNO
command.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon Configuration, Next: Scdaemon Examples, Prev: Card applications, Up: Invoking SCDAEMON

5.4 Configuration files
=======================

There are a few configuration files to control certain aspects of
'scdaemons''s operation. Unless noted, they are expected in the current
home directory (*note option --homedir::).

'scdaemon.conf'
This is the standard configuration file read by 'scdaemon' on
startup. It may contain any valid long option; the leading two
dashes may not be entered and the option may not be abbreviated.
This default name may be changed on the command line (*note option
--options::).

'scd-event'
If this file is present and executable, it will be called on veyer
card reader's status changed. An example of this script is
provided with the distribution

'reader_N.status'
This file is created by 'sdaemon' to let other applications now
about reader status changes. Its use is now deprecated in favor of
'scd-event'.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon Examples, Next: Scdaemon Protocol, Prev: Scdaemon Configuration, Up: Invoking SCDAEMON

5.5 Examples
============

$ scdaemon --server -v

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon Protocol, Prev: Scdaemon Examples, Up: Invoking SCDAEMON

5.6 Scdaemon's Assuan Protocol
==============================

The SC-Daemon should be started by the system to provide access to
external tokens. Using Smartcards on a multi-user system does not make
much sense expect for system services, but in this case no regular user
accounts are hosted on the machine.

A client connects to the SC-Daemon by connecting to the socket named
'/var/run/scdaemon/socket', configuration information is read from
/ETC/SCDAEMON.CONF

Each connection acts as one session, SC-Daemon takes care of
synchronizing access to a token between sessions.

* Menu:

* Scdaemon SERIALNO:: Return the serial number.
* Scdaemon LEARN:: Read all useful information from the card.
* Scdaemon READCERT:: Return a certificate.
* Scdaemon READKEY:: Return a public key.
* Scdaemon PKSIGN:: Signing data with a Smartcard.
* Scdaemon PKDECRYPT:: Decrypting data with a Smartcard.
* Scdaemon GETATTR:: Read an attribute's value.
* Scdaemon SETATTR:: Update an attribute's value.
* Scdaemon WRITEKEY:: Write a key to a card.
* Scdaemon GENKEY:: Generate a new key on-card.
* Scdaemon RANDOM:: Return random bytes generate on-card.
* Scdaemon PASSWD:: Change PINs.
* Scdaemon CHECKPIN:: Perform a VERIFY operation.
* Scdaemon RESTART:: Restart connection
* Scdaemon APDU:: Send a verbatim APDU to the card

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon SERIALNO, Next: Scdaemon LEARN, Up: Scdaemon Protocol

5.6.1 Return the serial number
------------------------------

This command should be used to check for the presence of a card. It is
special in that it can be used to reset the card. Most other commands
will return an error when a card change has been detected and the use of
this function is therefore required.

Background: We want to keep the client clear of handling card changes
between operations; i.e. the client can assume that all operations are
done on the same card unless he call this function.

SERIALNO

Return the serial number of the card using a status response like:

S SERIALNO D27600000000000000000000 0

The trailing 0 should be ignored for now, it is reserved for a future
extension. The serial number is the hex encoded value identified by the
'0x5A' tag in the GDO file (FIX=0x2F02).

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon LEARN, Next: Scdaemon READCERT, Prev: Scdaemon SERIALNO, Up: Scdaemon Protocol

5.6.2 Read all useful information from the card
-----------------------------------------------

LEARN [--force]

Learn all useful information of the currently inserted card. When
used without the force options, the command might do an INQUIRE like
this:

INQUIRE KNOWNCARDP <hexstring_with_serialNumber> <timestamp>

The client should just send an 'END' if the processing should go on
or a 'CANCEL' to force the function to terminate with a cancel error
message. The response of this command is a list of status lines
formatted as this:

S KEYPAIRINFO HEXSTRING_WITH_KEYGRIP HEXSTRING_WITH_ID

If there is no certificate yet stored on the card a single "X" is
returned in HEXSTRING_WITH_KEYGRIP.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon READCERT, Next: Scdaemon READKEY, Prev: Scdaemon LEARN, Up: Scdaemon Protocol

5.6.3 Return a certificate
--------------------------

READCERT HEXIFIED_CERTID|KEYID

This function is used to read a certificate identified by
HEXIFIED_CERTID from the card. With OpenPGP cards the keyid 'OpenPGP.3'
may be used to rad the certificate of version 2 cards.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon READKEY, Next: Scdaemon PKSIGN, Prev: Scdaemon READCERT, Up: Scdaemon Protocol

5.6.4 Return a public key
-------------------------

READKEY HEXIFIED_CERTID

Return the public key for the given cert or key ID as an standard
S-Expression.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon PKSIGN, Next: Scdaemon PKDECRYPT, Prev: Scdaemon READKEY, Up: Scdaemon Protocol

5.6.5 Signing data with a Smartcard
-----------------------------------

To sign some data the caller should use the command

SETDATA HEXSTRING

to tell 'scdaemon' about the data to be signed. The data must be
given in hex notation. The actual signing is done using the command

PKSIGN KEYID

where KEYID is the hexified ID of the key to be used. The key id may
have been retrieved using the command 'LEARN'. If another hash
algorithm than SHA-1 is used, that algorithm may be given like:

PKSIGN --hash=ALGONAME KEYID

With ALGONAME are one of 'sha1', 'rmd160' or 'md5'.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon PKDECRYPT, Next: Scdaemon GETATTR, Prev: Scdaemon PKSIGN, Up: Scdaemon Protocol

5.6.6 Decrypting data with a Smartcard
--------------------------------------

To decrypt some data the caller should use the command

SETDATA HEXSTRING

to tell 'scdaemon' about the data to be decrypted. The data must be
given in hex notation. The actual decryption is then done using the
command

PKDECRYPT KEYID

where KEYID is the hexified ID of the key to be used.

If the card is ware of the apdding format a status line with padding
information is send before the plaintext data. The key for this status
line is 'PADDING' with the only defined value being 0 and meaning
padding has been removed.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon GETATTR, Next: Scdaemon SETATTR, Prev: Scdaemon PKDECRYPT, Up: Scdaemon Protocol

5.6.7 Read an attribute's value.
--------------------------------

TO BE WRITTEN.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon SETATTR, Next: Scdaemon WRITEKEY, Prev: Scdaemon GETATTR, Up: Scdaemon Protocol

5.6.8 Update an attribute's value.
----------------------------------

TO BE WRITTEN.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon WRITEKEY, Next: Scdaemon GENKEY, Prev: Scdaemon SETATTR, Up: Scdaemon Protocol

5.6.9 Write a key to a card.
----------------------------

WRITEKEY [--force] KEYID

This command is used to store a secret key on a smartcard. The
allowed keyids depend on the currently selected smartcard application.
The actual keydata is requested using the inquiry 'KEYDATA' and need to
be provided without any protection. With '--force' set an existing key
under this KEYID will get overwritten. The key data is expected to be
the usual canonical encoded S-expression.

A PIN will be requested in most cases. This however depends on the
actual card application.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon GENKEY, Next: Scdaemon RANDOM, Prev: Scdaemon WRITEKEY, Up: Scdaemon Protocol

5.6.10 Generate a new key on-card.
----------------------------------

TO BE WRITTEN.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon RANDOM, Next: Scdaemon PASSWD, Prev: Scdaemon GENKEY, Up: Scdaemon Protocol

5.6.11 Return random bytes generate on-card.
--------------------------------------------

TO BE WRITTEN.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon PASSWD, Next: Scdaemon CHECKPIN, Prev: Scdaemon RANDOM, Up: Scdaemon Protocol

5.6.12 Change PINs.
-------------------

PASSWD [--reset] [--nullpin] CHVNO

Change the PIN or reset the retry counter of the card holder
verification vector number CHVNO. The option '--nullpin' is used to
initialize the PIN of TCOS cards (6 byte NullPIN only).

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon CHECKPIN, Next: Scdaemon RESTART, Prev: Scdaemon PASSWD, Up: Scdaemon Protocol

5.6.13 Perform a VERIFY operation.
----------------------------------

CHECKPIN IDSTR

Perform a VERIFY operation without doing anything else. This may be
used to initialize a the PIN cache earlier to long lasting operations.
Its use is highly application dependent:

*OpenPGP*

Perform a simple verify operation for CHV1 and CHV2, so that
further operations won't ask for CHV2 and it is possible to do a
cheap check on the PIN: If there is something wrong with the PIN
entry system, only the regular CHV will get blocked and not the
dangerous CHV3. IDSTR is the usual card's serial number in hex
notation; an optional fingerprint part will get ignored.

There is however a special mode if IDSTR is suffixed with the
literal string '[CHV3]': In this case the Admin PIN is checked if
and only if the retry counter is still at 3.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon RESTART, Next: Scdaemon APDU, Prev: Scdaemon CHECKPIN, Up: Scdaemon Protocol

5.6.14 Perform a RESTART operation.
-----------------------------------

RESTART

Restart the current connection; this is a kind of warm reset. It
deletes the context used by this connection but does not actually reset
the card.

This is used by gpg-agent to reuse a primary pipe connection and may
be used by clients to backup from a conflict in the serial command; i.e.
to select another application.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Scdaemon APDU, Prev: Scdaemon RESTART, Up: Scdaemon Protocol

5.6.15 Send a verbatim APDU to the card.
----------------------------------------

APDU [--atr] [--more] [--exlen[=N]] [HEXSTRING]

Send an APDU to the current reader. This command bypasses the high
level functions and sends the data directly to the card. HEXSTRING is
expected to be a proper APDU. If HEXSTRING is not given no commands are
send to the card; However the command will implicitly check whether the
card is ready for use.

Using the option '--atr' returns the ATR of the card as a status
message before any data like this:
S CARD-ATR 3BFA1300FF813180450031C173C00100009000B1

Using the option '--more' handles the card status word MORE_DATA
(61xx) and concatenate all responses to one block.

Using the option '--exlen' the returned APDU may use extended length
up to N bytes. If N is not given a default value is used (currently
4096).

File: gnupg.info, Node: Specify a User ID, Next: Helper Tools, Prev: Invoking SCDAEMON, Up: Top

6 How to Specify a User Id
**************************

There are different ways to specify a user ID to GnuPG. Some of them are
only valid for 'gpg' others are only good for 'gpgsm'. Here is the
entire list of ways to specify a key:

* By key Id. This format is deduced from the length of the string
and its content or '0x' prefix. The key Id of an X.509 certificate
are the low 64 bits of its SHA-1 fingerprint. The use of key Ids
is just a shortcut, for all automated processing the fingerprint
should be used.

When using 'gpg' an exclamation mark (!) may be appended to force
using the specified primary or secondary key and not to try and
calculate which primary or secondary key to use.

The last four lines of the example give the key ID in their long
form as internally used by the OpenPGP protocol. You can see the
long key ID using the option '--with-colons'.

234567C4
0F34E556E
01347A56A
0xAB123456

234AABBCC34567C4
0F323456784E56EAB
01AB3FED1347A5612
0x234AABBCC34567C4

* By fingerprint. This format is deduced from the length of the
string and its content or the '0x' prefix. Note, that only the 20
byte version fingerprint is available with 'gpgsm' (i.e. the SHA-1
hash of the certificate).

When using 'gpg' an exclamation mark (!) may be appended to force
using the specified primary or secondary key and not to try and
calculate which primary or secondary key to use.

The best way to specify a key Id is by using the fingerprint. This
avoids any ambiguities in case that there are duplicated key IDs.

1234343434343434C434343434343434
123434343434343C3434343434343734349A3434
0E12343434343434343434EAB3484343434343434
0xE12343434343434343434EAB3484343434343434

('gpgsm' also accepts colons between each pair of hexadecimal
digits because this is the de-facto standard on how to present
X.509 fingerprints.)

* By exact match on OpenPGP user ID. This is denoted by a leading
equal sign. It does not make sense for X.509 certificates.

=Heinrich Heine <heinrichh@uni-duesseldorf.de>

* By exact match on an email address. This is indicated by enclosing
the email address in the usual way with left and right angles.

<heinrichh@uni-duesseldorf.de>

* By word match. All words must match exactly (not case sensitive)
but can appear in any order in the user ID or a subjects name.
Words are any sequences of letters, digits, the underscore and all
characters with bit 7 set.

+Heinrich Heine duesseldorf

* By exact match on the subject's DN. This is indicated by a leading
slash, directly followed by the RFC-2253 encoded DN of the subject.
Note that you can't use the string printed by "gpgsm -list-keys"
because that one as been reordered and modified for better
readability; use -with-colons to print the raw (but standard
escaped) RFC-2253 string

/CN=Heinrich Heine,O=Poets,L=Paris,C=FR

* By exact match on the issuer's DN. This is indicated by a leading
hash mark, directly followed by a slash and then directly followed
by the rfc2253 encoded DN of the issuer. This should return the
Root cert of the issuer. See note above.

#/CN=Root Cert,O=Poets,L=Paris,C=FR

* By exact match on serial number and issuer's DN. This is indicated
by a hash mark, followed by the hexadecimal representation of the
serial number, then followed by a slash and the RFC-2253 encoded DN
of the issuer. See note above.

#4F03/CN=Root Cert,O=Poets,L=Paris,C=FR

* By keygrip This is indicated by an ampersand followed by the 40 hex
digits of a keygrip. 'gpgsm' prints the keygrip when using the
command '--dump-cert'. It does not yet work for OpenPGP keys.

&D75F22C3F86E355877348498CDC92BD21010A480

* By substring match. This is the default mode but applications may
want to explicitly indicate this by putting the asterisk in front.
Match is not case sensitive.

Heine
*Heine

Please note that we have reused the hash mark identifier which was
used in old GnuPG versions to indicate the so called local-id. It is
not anymore used and there should be no conflict when used with X.509
stuff.

Using the RFC-2253 format of DNs has the drawback that it is not
possible to map them back to the original encoding, however we don't
have to do this because our key database stores this encoding as meta
data.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Helper Tools, Next: Howtos, Prev: Specify a User ID, Up: Top

7 Helper Tools
**************

GnuPG comes with a couple of smaller tools:

* Menu:

* watchgnupg:: Read logs from a socket.
* gpgv:: Verify OpenPGP signatures.
* addgnupghome:: Create .gnupg home directories.
* gpgconf:: Modify .gnupg home directories.
* applygnupgdefaults:: Run gpgconf for all users.
* gpgsm-gencert.sh:: Generate an X.509 certificate request.
* gpg-preset-passphrase:: Put a passphrase into the cache.
* gpg-connect-agent:: Communicate with a running agent.
* gpgparsemail:: Parse a mail message into an annotated format
* symcryptrun:: Call a simple symmetric encryption tool.
* gpg-zip:: Encrypt or sign files into an archive.

File: gnupg.info, Node: watchgnupg, Next: gpgv, Up: Helper Tools

7.1 Read logs from a socket
===========================

Most of the main utilities are able to write their log files to a Unix
Domain socket if configured that way. 'watchgnupg' is a simple listener
for such a socket. It ameliorates the output with a time stamp and
makes sure that long lines are not interspersed with log output from
other utilities. This tool is not available for Windows.

'watchgnupg' is commonly invoked as

watchgnupg --force ~/.gnupg/S.log

This starts it on the current terminal for listening on the socket
'~/.gnupg/S.log'.

'watchgnupg' understands these options:

'--force'
Delete an already existing socket file.

'--tcp N'
Instead of reading from a local socket, listen for connects on TCP
port N.

'--verbose'
Enable extra informational output.

'--version'
Print version of the program and exit.

'--help'
Display a brief help page and exit.

Examples
********

$ watchgnupg --force /home/foo/.gnupg/S.log

This waits for connections on the local socket
'/home/foo/.gnupg/S.log' and shows all log entries. To make this work
the option 'log-file' needs to be used with all modules which logs are
to be shown. The value for that option must be given with a special
prefix (e.g. in the conf file):

log-file socket:///home/foo/.gnupg/S.log

For debugging purposes it is also possible to do remote logging.
Take care if you use this feature because the information is send in the
clear over the network. Use this syntax in the conf files:

log-file tcp://192.168.1.1:4711

You may use any port and not just 4711 as shown above; only IP
addresses are supported (v4 and v6) and no host names. You need to
start 'watchgnupg' with the 'tcp' option. Note that under Windows the
registry entry HKCU\SOFTWARE\GNU\GNUPG:DEFAULTLOGFILE can be used to
change the default log output from 'stderr' to whatever is given by that
entry. However the only useful entry is a TCP name for remote
debugging.

File: gnupg.info, Node: gpgv, Next: addgnupghome, Prev: watchgnupg, Up: Helper Tools

7.2 Verify OpenPGP signatures
=============================

'gpgv2' is an OpenPGP signature verification tool.

This program is actually a stripped-down version of 'gpg' which is
only able to check signatures. It is somewhat smaller than the
fully-blown 'gpg' and uses a different (and simpler) way to check that
the public keys used to make the signature are valid. There are no
configuration files and only a few options are implemented.

'gpgv2' assumes that all keys in the keyring are trustworthy. By
default it uses a keyring named 'trustedkeys.gpg' which is assumed to be
in the home directory as defined by GnuPG or set by an option or an
environment variable. An option may be used to specify another keyring
or even multiple keyrings.

'gpgv2' recognizes these options:

'--verbose'
'-v'
Gives more information during processing. If used twice, the input
data is listed in detail.

'--quiet'
'-q'
Try to be as quiet as possible.

'--keyring FILE'
Add FILE to the list of keyrings. If FILE begins with a tilde and
a slash, these are replaced by the HOME directory. If the filename
does not contain a slash, it is assumed to be in the home-directory
("~/.gnupg" if -homedir is not used).

'--status-fd N'
Write special status strings to the file descriptor N. See the
file DETAILS in the documentation for a listing of them.

'--logger-fd n'
Write log output to file descriptor 'n' and not to stderr.

The program returns 0 if everything is fine, 1 if at least one
signature was bad, and other error codes for fatal errors.

7.2.1 Examples
--------------

gpgv2 'pgpfile'
gpgv2 'sigfile' ['datafile']
Verify the signature of the file. The second form is used for
detached signatures, where 'sigfile' is the detached signature
(either ASCII-armored or binary) and 'datafile' contains the signed
data; if 'datafile' is "-" the signed data is expected on 'stdin';
if 'datafile' is not given the name of the file holding the signed
data is constructed by cutting off the extension (".asc", ".sig" or
".sign") from 'sigfile'.

7.2.2 Environment
-----------------

HOME
Used to locate the default home directory.

GNUPGHOME
If set directory used instead of "~/.gnupg".

7.2.3 FILES
-----------

~/.gnupg/trustedkeys.gpg
The default keyring with the allowed keys.

'gpg2'(1)

File: gnupg.info, Node: addgnupghome, Next: gpgconf, Prev: gpgv, Up: Helper Tools

7.3 Create .gnupg home directories.
===================================

If GnuPG is installed on a system with existing user accounts, it is
sometimes required to populate the GnuPG home directory with existing
files. Especially a 'trustlist.txt' and a keybox with some initial
certificates are often desired. This scripts help to do this by copying
all files from '/etc/skel/.gnupg' to the home directories of the
accounts given on the command line. It takes care not to overwrite
existing GnuPG home directories.

'addgnupghome' is invoked by root as:

addgnupghome account1 account2 ... accountn

File: gnupg.info, Node: gpgconf, Next: applygnupgdefaults, Prev: addgnupghome, Up: Helper Tools

7.4 Modify .gnupg home directories.
===================================

The 'gpgconf' is a utility to automatically and reasonable safely query
and modify configuration files in the '.gnupg' home directory. It is
designed not to be invoked manually by the user, but automatically by
graphical user interfaces (GUI).(1)

'gpgconf' provides access to the configuration of one or more
components of the GnuPG system. These components correspond more or
less to the programs that exist in the GnuPG framework, like GnuPG,
GPGSM, DirMngr, etc. But this is not a strict one-to-one relationship.
Not all configuration options are available through 'gpgconf'.
'gpgconf' provides a generic and abstract method to access the most
important configuration options that can feasibly be controlled via such
a mechanism.

'gpgconf' can be used to gather and change the options available in
each component, and can also provide their default values. 'gpgconf'
will give detailed type information that can be used to restrict the
user's input without making an attempt to commit the changes.

'gpgconf' provides the backend of a configuration editor. The
configuration editor would usually be a graphical user interface
program, that allows to display the current options, their default
values, and allows the user to make changes to the options. These
changes can then be made active with 'gpgconf' again. Such a program
that uses 'gpgconf' in this way will be called GUI throughout this
section.

* Menu:

* Invoking gpgconf:: List of all commands and options.
* Format conventions:: Formatting conventions relevant for all commands.
* Listing components:: List all gpgconf components.
* Checking programs:: Check all programs know to gpgconf.
* Listing options:: List all options of a component.
* Changing options:: Changing options of a component.
* Listing global options:: List all global options.
* Files used by gpgconf:: What files are used by gpgconf.

---------- Footnotes ----------

(1) Please note that currently no locking is done, so concurrent
access should be avoided. There are some precautions to avoid
corruption with concurrent usage, but results may be inconsistent and
some changes may get lost. The stateless design makes it difficult to
provide more guarantees.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Invoking gpgconf, Next: Format conventions, Up: gpgconf

7.4.1 Invoking gpgconf
----------------------

One of the following commands must be given:

'--list-components'
List all components. This is the default command used if none is
specified.

'--check-programs'
List all available backend programs and test whether they are
runnable.

'--list-options COMPONENT'
List all options of the component COMPONENT.

'--change-options COMPONENT'
Change the options of the component COMPONENT.

'--check-options COMPONENT'
Check the options for the component COMPONENT.

'--apply-defaults'
Update all configuration files with values taken from the global
configuration file (usually '/etc/gnupg/gpgconf.conf').

'--list-dirs'
Lists the directories used by 'gpgconf'. One directory is listed
per line, and each line consists of a colon-separated list where
the first field names the directory type (for example 'sysconfdir')
and the second field contains the percent-escaped directory.
Although they are not directories, the socket file names used by
'gpg-agent' and 'dirmngr' are printed as well. Note that the
socket file names and the 'homedir' lines are the default names and
they may be overridden by command line switches.

'--list-config [FILENAME]'
List the global configuration file in a colon separated format. If
FILENAME is given, check that file instead.

'--check-config [FILENAME]'
Run a syntax check on the global configuration file. If FILENAME
is given, check that file instead.

'--reload [COMPONENT]'
Reload all or the given component. This is basically the same as
sending a SIGHUP to the component. Components which don't support
reloading are ignored.

The following options may be used:

'-v'
'--verbose'
Outputs additional information while running. Specifically, this
extends numerical field values by human-readable descriptions.

'-n'
'--dry-run'
Do not actually change anything. This is currently only
implemented for '--change-options' and can be used for testing
purposes.

'-r'
'--runtime'
Only used together with '--change-options'. If one of the modified
options can be changed in a running daemon process, signal the
running daemon to ask it to reparse its configuration file after
changing.

This means that the changes will take effect at run-time, as far as
this is possible. Otherwise, they will take effect at the next
start of the respective backend programs.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Format conventions, Next: Listing components, Prev: Invoking gpgconf, Up: gpgconf

7.4.2 Format conventions
------------------------

Some lines in the output of 'gpgconf' contain a list of colon-separated
fields. The following conventions apply:

* The GUI program is required to strip off trailing newline and/or
carriage return characters from the output.

* 'gpgconf' will never leave out fields. If a certain version
provides a certain field, this field will always be present in all
'gpgconf' versions from that time on.

* Future versions of 'gpgconf' might append fields to the list. New
fields will always be separated from the previously last field by a
colon separator. The GUI should be prepared to parse the last
field it knows about up until a colon or end of line.

* Not all fields are defined under all conditions. You are required
to ignore the content of undefined fields.

There are several standard types for the content of a field:

verbatim
Some fields contain strings that are not escaped in any way. Such
fields are described to be used _verbatim_. These fields will
never contain a colon character (for obvious reasons). No
de-escaping or other formatting is required to use the field
content. This is for easy parsing of the output, when it is known
that the content can never contain any special characters.

percent-escaped
Some fields contain strings that are described to be
_percent-escaped_. Such strings need to be de-escaped before their
content can be presented to the user. A percent-escaped string is
de-escaped by replacing all occurrences of '%XY' by the byte that
has the hexadecimal value 'XY'. 'X' and 'Y' are from the set
'0-9a-f'.

localised
Some fields contain strings that are described to be _localised_.
Such strings are translated to the active language and formatted in
the active character set.

unsigned number
Some fields contain an _unsigned number_. This number will always
fit into a 32-bit unsigned integer variable. The number may be
followed by a space, followed by a human readable description of
that value (if the verbose option is used). You should ignore
everything in the field that follows the number.

signed number
Some fields contain a _signed number_. This number will always fit
into a 32-bit signed integer variable. The number may be followed
by a space, followed by a human readable description of that value
(if the verbose option is used). You should ignore everything in
the field that follows the number.

boolean value
Some fields contain a _boolean value_. This is a number with
either the value 0 or 1. The number may be followed by a space,
followed by a human readable description of that value (if the
verbose option is used). You should ignore everything in the field
that follows the number; checking just the first character is
sufficient in this case.

option
Some fields contain an _option_ argument. The format of an option
argument depends on the type of the option and on some flags:

no argument
The simplest case is that the option does not take an argument
at all (TYPE '0'). Then the option argument is an unsigned
number that specifies how often the option occurs. If the
'list' flag is not set, then the only valid number is '1'.
Options that do not take an argument never have the 'default'
or 'optional arg' flag set.

number
If the option takes a number argument (ALT-TYPE is '2' or
'3'), and it can only occur once ('list' flag is not set),
then the option argument is either empty (only allowed if the
argument is optional), or it is a number. A number is a
string that begins with an optional minus character, followed
by one or more digits. The number must fit into an integer
variable (unsigned or signed, depending on ALT-TYPE).

number list
If the option takes a number argument and it can occur more
than once, then the option argument is either empty, or it is
a comma-separated list of numbers as described above.

string
If the option takes a string argument (ALT-TYPE is 1), and it
can only occur once ('list' flag is not set) then the option
argument is either empty (only allowed if the argument is
optional), or it starts with a double quote character ('"')
followed by a percent-escaped string that is the argument
value. Note that there is only a leading double quote
character, no trailing one. The double quote character is
only needed to be able to differentiate between no value and
the empty string as value.

string list
If the option takes a number argument and it can occur more
than once, then the option argument is either empty, or it is
a comma-separated list of string arguments as described above.

The active language and character set are currently determined from
the locale environment of the 'gpgconf' program.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Listing components, Next: Checking programs, Prev: Format conventions, Up: gpgconf

7.4.3 Listing components
------------------------

The command '--list-components' will list all components that can be
configured with 'gpgconf'. Usually, one component will correspond to
one GnuPG-related program and contain the options of that programs
configuration file that can be modified using 'gpgconf'. However, this
is not necessarily the case. A component might also be a group of
selected options from several programs, or contain entirely virtual
options that have a special effect rather than changing exactly one
option in one configuration file.

A component is a set of configuration options that semantically
belong together. Furthermore, several changes to a component can be
made in an atomic way with a single operation. The GUI could for
example provide a menu with one entry for each component, or a window
with one tabulator sheet per component.

The command argument '--list-components' lists all available
components, one per line. The format of each line is:

'NAME:DESCRIPTION:PGMNAME:'

NAME
This field contains a name tag of the component. The name tag is
used to specify the component in all communication with 'gpgconf'.
The name tag is to be used _verbatim_. It is thus not in any
escaped format.

DESCRIPTION
The _string_ in this field contains a human-readable description of
the component. It can be displayed to the user of the GUI for
informational purposes. It is _percent-escaped_ and _localized_.

PGMNAME
The _string_ in this field contains the absolute name of the
program's file. It can be used to unambiguously invoke that
program. It is _percent-escaped_.

Example:
$ gpgconf --list-components
gpg:GPG for OpenPGP:/usr/local/bin/gpg2:
gpg-agent:GPG Agent:/usr/local/bin/gpg-agent:
scdaemon:Smartcard Daemon:/usr/local/bin/scdaemon:
gpgsm:GPG for S/MIME:/usr/local/bin/gpgsm:
dirmngr:Directory Manager:/usr/local/bin/dirmngr:

File: gnupg.info, Node: Checking programs, Next: Listing options, Prev: Listing components, Up: gpgconf

7.4.4 Checking programs
-----------------------

The command '--check-programs' is similar to '--list-components' but
works on backend programs and not on components. It runs each program
to test whether it is installed and runnable. This also includes a
syntax check of all config file options of the program.

The command argument '--check-programs' lists all available programs,
one per line. The format of each line is:

'NAME:DESCRIPTION:PGMNAME:AVAIL:OKAY:CFGFILE:LINE:ERROR:'

NAME
This field contains a name tag of the program which is identical to
the name of the component. The name tag is to be used _verbatim_.
It is thus not in any escaped format. This field may be empty to
indicate a continuation of error descriptions for the last name.
The description and pgmname fields are then also empty.

PGMNAME
The _string_ in this field contains the absolute name of the
program's file. It can be used to unambiguously invoke that
program. It is _percent-escaped_.

AVAIL
The _boolean value_ in this field indicates whether the program is
installed and runnable.

OKAY
The _boolean value_ in this field indicates whether the program's
config file is syntactically okay.

CFGFILE
If an error occurred in the configuration file (as indicated by a
false value in the field 'okay'), this field has the name of the
failing configuration file. It is _percent-escaped_.

LINE
If an error occurred in the configuration file, this field has the
line number of the failing statement in the configuration file. It
is an _unsigned number_.

ERROR
If an error occurred in the configuration file, this field has the
error text of the failing statement in the configuration file. It
is _percent-escaped_ and _localized_.

In the following example the 'dirmngr' is not runnable and the
configuration file of 'scdaemon' is not okay.

$ gpgconf --check-programs
gpg:GPG for OpenPGP:/usr/local/bin/gpg2:1:1:
gpg-agent:GPG Agent:/usr/local/bin/gpg-agent:1:1:
scdaemon:Smartcard Daemon:/usr/local/bin/scdaemon:1:0:
gpgsm:GPG for S/MIME:/usr/local/bin/gpgsm:1:1:
dirmngr:Directory Manager:/usr/local/bin/dirmngr:0:0:

The command '--check-options COMPONENT' will verify the configuration
file in the same manner as '--check-programs', but only for the
component COMPONENT.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Listing options, Next: Changing options, Prev: Checking programs, Up: gpgconf

7.4.5 Listing options
---------------------

Every component contains one or more options. Options may be gathered
into option groups to allow the GUI to give visual hints to the user
about which options are related.

The command argument '--list-options COMPONENT' lists all options
(and the groups they belong to) in the component COMPONENT, one per
line. COMPONENT must be the string in the field NAME in the output of
the '--list-components' command.

There is one line for each option and each group. First come all
options that are not in any group. Then comes a line describing a
group. Then come all options that belong into each group. Then comes
the next group and so on. There does not need to be any group (and in
this case the output will stop after the last non-grouped option).

The format of each line is:

'NAME:FLAGS:LEVEL:DESCRIPTION:TYPE:ALT-TYPE:ARGNAME:DEFAULT:ARGDEF:VALUE'

NAME
This field contains a name tag for the group or option. The name
tag is used to specify the group or option in all communication
with 'gpgconf'. The name tag is to be used _verbatim_. It is thus
not in any escaped format.

FLAGS
The flags field contains an _unsigned number_. Its value is the
OR-wise combination of the following flag values:

'group (1)'
If this flag is set, this is a line describing a group and not
an option.

The following flag values are only defined for options (that is, if
the 'group' flag is not used).

'optional arg (2)'
If this flag is set, the argument is optional. This is never
set for TYPE '0' (none) options.

'list (4)'
If this flag is set, the option can be given multiple times.

'runtime (8)'
If this flag is set, the option can be changed at runtime.

'default (16)'
If this flag is set, a default value is available.

'default desc (32)'
If this flag is set, a (runtime) default is available. This
and the 'default' flag are mutually exclusive.

'no arg desc (64)'
If this flag is set, and the 'optional arg' flag is set, then
the option has a special meaning if no argument is given.

'no change (128)'
If this flag is set, gpgconf ignores requests to change the
value. GUI frontends should grey out this option. Note, that
manual changes of the configuration files are still possible.

LEVEL
This field is defined for options and for groups. It contains an
_unsigned number_ that specifies the expert level under which this
group or option should be displayed. The following expert levels
are defined for options (they have analogous meaning for groups):

'basic (0)'
This option should always be offered to the user.

'advanced (1)'
This option may be offered to advanced users.

'expert (2)'
This option should only be offered to expert users.

'invisible (3)'
This option should normally never be displayed, not even to
expert users.

'internal (4)'
This option is for internal use only. Ignore it.

The level of a group will always be the lowest level of all options
it contains.

DESCRIPTION
This field is defined for options and groups. The _string_ in this
field contains a human-readable description of the option or group.
It can be displayed to the user of the GUI for informational
purposes. It is _percent-escaped_ and _localized_.

TYPE
This field is only defined for options. It contains an _unsigned
number_ that specifies the type of the option's argument, if any.
The following types are defined:

Basic types:

'none (0)'
No argument allowed.

'string (1)'
An _unformatted string_.

'int32 (2)'
A _signed number_.

'uint32 (3)'
An _unsigned number_.

Complex types:

'pathname (32)'
A _string_ that describes the pathname of a file. The file
does not necessarily need to exist.

'ldap server (33)'
A _string_ that describes an LDAP server in the format:

'HOSTNAME:PORT:USERNAME:PASSWORD:BASE_DN'

'key fingerprint (34)'
A _string_ with a 40 digit fingerprint specifying a
certificate.

'pub key (35)'
A _string_ that describes a certificate by user ID, key ID or
fingerprint.

'sec key (36)'
A _string_ that describes a certificate with a key by user ID,
key ID or fingerprint.

'alias list (37)'
A _string_ that describes an alias list, like the one used
with gpg's group option. The list consists of a key, an equal
sign and space separated values.

More types will be added in the future. Please see the ALT-TYPE
field for information on how to cope with unknown types.

ALT-TYPE
This field is identical to TYPE, except that only the types '0' to
'31' are allowed. The GUI is expected to present the user the
option in the format specified by TYPE. But if the argument type
TYPE is not supported by the GUI, it can still display the option
in the more generic basic type ALT-TYPE. The GUI must support all
the defined basic types to be able to display all options. More
basic types may be added in future versions. If the GUI encounters
a basic type it doesn't support, it should report an error and
abort the operation.

ARGNAME
This field is only defined for options with an argument type TYPE
that is not '0'. In this case it may contain a _percent-escaped_
and _localised string_ that gives a short name for the argument.
The field may also be empty, though, in which case a short name is
not known.

DEFAULT
This field is defined only for options for which the 'default' or
'default desc' flag is set. If the 'default' flag is set, its
format is that of an _option argument_ (*Note Format conventions::,
for details). If the default value is empty, then no default is
known. Otherwise, the value specifies the default value for this
option. If the 'default desc' flag is set, the field is either
empty or contains a description of the effect if the option is not
given.

ARGDEF
This field is defined only for options for which the 'optional arg'
flag is set. If the 'no arg desc' flag is not set, its format is
that of an _option argument_ (*Note Format conventions::, for
details). If the default value is empty, then no default is known.
Otherwise, the value specifies the default argument for this
option. If the 'no arg desc' flag is set, the field is either
empty or contains a description of the effect of this option if no
argument is given.

VALUE
This field is defined only for options. Its format is that of an
_option argument_. If it is empty, then the option is not
explicitly set in the current configuration, and the default
applies (if any). Otherwise, it contains the current value of the
option. Note that this field is also meaningful if the option
itself does not take a real argument (in this case, it contains the
number of times the option appears).

File: gnupg.info, Node: Changing options, Next: Listing global options, Prev: Listing options, Up: gpgconf

7.4.6 Changing options
----------------------

The command '--change-options COMPONENT' will attempt to change the
options of the component COMPONENT to the specified values. COMPONENT
must be the string in the field NAME in the output of the
'--list-components' command. You have to provide the options that shall
be changed in the following format on standard input:

'NAME:FLAGS:NEW-VALUE'

NAME
This is the name of the option to change. NAME must be the string
in the field NAME in the output of the '--list-options' command.

FLAGS
The flags field contains an _unsigned number_. Its value is the
OR-wise combination of the following flag values:

'default (16)'
If this flag is set, the option is deleted and the default
value is used instead (if applicable).

NEW-VALUE
The new value for the option. This field is only defined if the
'default' flag is not set. The format is that of an _option
argument_. If it is empty (or the field is omitted), the default
argument is used (only allowed if the argument is optional for this
option). Otherwise, the option will be set to the specified value.

The output of the command is the same as that of '--check-options' for
the modified configuration file.

Examples:

To set the force option, which is of basic type 'none (0)':

$ echo 'force:0:1' | gpgconf --change-options dirmngr

To delete the force option:

$ echo 'force:16:' | gpgconf --change-options dirmngr

The '--runtime' option can influence when the changes take effect.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Listing global options, Next: Files used by gpgconf, Prev: Changing options, Up: gpgconf

7.4.7 Listing global options
----------------------------

Sometimes it is useful for applications to look at the global options
file 'gpgconf.conf'. The colon separated listing format is record
oriented and uses the first field to identify the record type:

'k'
This describes a key record to start the definition of a new
ruleset for a user/group. The format of a key record is:

'k:USER:GROUP:'

USER
This is the user field of the key. It is percent escaped.
See the definition of the gpgconf.conf format for details.

GROUP
This is the group field of the key. It is percent escaped.

'r'
This describes a rule record. All rule records up to the next key
record make up a rule set for that key. The format of a rule
record is:

'r:::COMPONENT:OPTION:FLAGS:VALUE:'

COMPONENT
This is the component part of a rule. It is a plain string.

OPTION
This is the option part of a rule. It is a plain string.

FLAG
This is the flags part of a rule. There may be only one flag
per rule but by using the same component and option, several
flags may be assigned to an option. It is a plain string.

VALUE
This is the optional value for the option. It is a percent
escaped string with a single quotation mark to indicate a
string. The quotation mark is only required to distinguish
between no value specified and an empty string.

Unknown record types should be ignored. Note that there is
intentionally no feature to change the global option file through
'gpgconf'.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Files used by gpgconf, Prev: Listing global options, Up: gpgconf

7.4.8 Files used by gpgconf
---------------------------

'/etc/gnupg/gpgconf.conf'
If this file exists, it is processed as a global configuration
file. A commented example can be found in the 'examples' directory
of the distribution.

File: gnupg.info, Node: applygnupgdefaults, Next: gpgsm-gencert.sh, Prev: gpgconf, Up: Helper Tools

7.5 Run gpgconf for all users.
==============================

This script is a wrapper around 'gpgconf' to run it with the command
'--apply-defaults' for all real users with an existing GnuPG home
directory. Admins might want to use this script to update he GnuPG
configuration files for all users after '/etc/gnupg/gpgconf.conf' has
been changed. This allows to enforce certain policies for all users.
Note, that this is not a bulletproof of forcing a user to use certain
options. A user may always directly edit the configuration files and
bypass gpgconf.

'applygnupgdefaults' is invoked by root as:

applygnupgdefaults

File: gnupg.info, Node: gpgsm-gencert.sh, Next: gpg-preset-passphrase, Prev: applygnupgdefaults, Up: Helper Tools

7.6 Generate an X.509 certificate request
=========================================

This is a simple tool to interactively generate a certificate request
which will be printed to stdout.

'gpgsm-gencert.sh' is invoked as:

'gpgsm-cencert.sh'

File: gnupg.info, Node: gpg-preset-passphrase, Next: gpg-connect-agent, Prev: gpgsm-gencert.sh, Up: Helper Tools

7.7 Put a passphrase into the cache.
====================================

The 'gpg-preset-passphrase' is a utility to seed the internal cache of a
running 'gpg-agent' with passphrases. It is mainly useful for
unattended machines, where the usual 'pinentry' tool may not be used and
the passphrases for the to be used keys are given at machine startup.

Passphrases set with this utility don't expire unless the '--forget'
option is used to explicitly clear them from the cache -- or 'gpg-agent'
is either restarted or reloaded (by sending a SIGHUP to it). Nite that
the maximum cache time as set with '--max-cache-ttl' is still honored.
It is necessary to allow this passphrase presetting by starting
'gpg-agent' with the '--allow-preset-passphrase'.

* Menu:

* Invoking gpg-preset-passphrase:: List of all commands and options.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Invoking gpg-preset-passphrase, Up: gpg-preset-passphrase

7.7.1 List of all commands and options.
---------------------------------------

'gpg-preset-passphrase' is invoked this way:

gpg-preset-passphrase [options] [command] CACHEID

CACHEID is either a 40 character keygrip of hexadecimal characters
identifying the key for which the passphrase should be set or cleared.
The keygrip is listed along with the key when running the command:
'gpgsm --dump-secret-keys'. Alternatively an arbitrary string may be
used to identify a passphrase; it is suggested that such a string is
prefixed with the name of the application (e.g 'foo:12346').

One of the following command options must be given:

'--preset'
Preset a passphrase. This is what you usually will use.
'gpg-preset-passphrase' will then read the passphrase from 'stdin'.

'--forget'
Flush the passphrase for the given cache ID from the cache.

The following additional options may be used:

'-v'
'--verbose'
Output additional information while running.

'-P STRING'
'--passphrase STRING'
Instead of reading the passphrase from 'stdin', use the supplied
STRING as passphrase. Note that this makes the passphrase visible
for other users.

File: gnupg.info, Node: gpg-connect-agent, Next: gpgparsemail, Prev: gpg-preset-passphrase, Up: Helper Tools

7.8 Communicate with a running agent.
=====================================

The 'gpg-connect-agent' is a utility to communicate with a running
'gpg-agent'. It is useful to check out the commands gpg-agent provides
using the Assuan interface. It might also be useful for scripting
simple applications. Input is expected at stdin and out put gets
printed to stdout.

It is very similar to running 'gpg-agent' in server mode; but here we
connect to a running instance.

* Menu:

* Invoking gpg-connect-agent:: List of all options.
* Controlling gpg-connect-agent:: Control commands.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Invoking gpg-connect-agent, Next: Controlling gpg-connect-agent, Up: gpg-connect-agent

7.8.1 List of all options.
--------------------------

'gpg-connect-agent' is invoked this way:

gpg-connect-agent [options] [commands]

The following options may be used:

'-v'
'--verbose'
Output additional information while running.

'-q'
'--quiet'
Try to be as quiet as possible.

'--agent-program FILE'
Specify the agent program to be started if none is running.

'-S'
'--raw-socket NAME'
Connect to socket NAME assuming this is an Assuan style server. Do
not run any special initializations or environment checks. This
may be used to directly connect to any Assuan style socket server.

'-E'
'--exec'
Take the rest of the command line as a program and it's arguments
and execute it as an assuan server. Here is how you would run
'gpgsm':
gpg-connect-agent --exec gpgsm --server
Note that you may not use options on the command line in this case.

'--no-ext-connect'
When using '-S' or '--exec', 'gpg-connect-agent' connects to the
assuan server in extended mode to allow descriptor passing. This
option makes it use the old mode.

'--run FILE'
Run the commands from FILE at startup and then continue with the
regular input method. Note, that commands given on the command
line are executed after this file.

'-s'
'--subst'
Run the command '/subst' at startup.

'--hex'
Print data lines in a hex format and the ASCII representation of
non-control characters.

'--decode'
Decode data lines. That is to remove percent escapes but make sure
that a new line always starts with a D and a space.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Controlling gpg-connect-agent, Prev: Invoking gpg-connect-agent, Up: gpg-connect-agent

7.8.2 Control commands.
-----------------------

While reading Assuan commands, gpg-agent also allows a few special
commands to control its operation. These control commands all start
with a slash ('/').

'/echo ARGS'
Just print ARGS.

'/let NAME VALUE'
Set the variable NAME to VALUE. Variables are only substituted on
the input if the '/subst' has been used. Variables are referenced
by prefixing the name with a dollar sign and optionally include the
name in curly braces. The rules for a valid name are identically
to those of the standard bourne shell. This is not yet enforced
but may be in the future. When used with curly braces no leading
or trailing white space is allowed.

If a variable is not found, it is searched in the environment and
if found copied to the table of variables.

Variable functions are available: The name of the function must be
followed by at least one space and the at least one argument. The
following functions are available:

'get'
Return a value described by the argument. Available arguments
are:

'cwd'
The current working directory.
'homedir'
The gnupg homedir.
'sysconfdir'
GnuPG's system configuration directory.
'bindir'
GnuPG's binary directory.
'libdir'
GnuPG's library directory.
'libexecdir'
GnuPG's library directory for executable files.
'datadir'
GnuPG's data directory.
'serverpid'
The PID of the current server. Command '/serverpid' must
have been given to return a useful value.

'unescape ARGS'
Remove C-style escapes from ARGS. Note that '\0' and '\x00'
terminate the returned string implicitly. The string to be
converted are the entire arguments right behind the delimiting
space of the function name.

'unpercent ARGS'
'unpercent+ ARGS'
Remove percent style escaping from ARGS. Note that '%00'
terminates the string implicitly. The string to be converted
are the entire arguments right behind the delimiting space of
the function name. 'unpercent+' also maps plus signs to a
spaces.

'percent ARGS'
'percent+ ARGS'
Escape the ARGS using percent style escaping. Tabs,
formfeeds, linefeeds, carriage returns and colons are escaped.
'percent+' also maps spaces to plus signs.

'errcode ARG'
'errsource ARG'
'errstring ARG'
Assume ARG is an integer and evaluate it using 'strtol'.
Return the gpg-error error code, error source or a formatted
string with the error code and error source.

'+'
'-'
'*'
'/'
'%'
Evaluate all arguments as long integers using 'strtol' and
apply this operator. A division by zero yields an empty
string.

'!'
'|'
'&'
Evaluate all arguments as long integers using 'strtol' and
apply the logical oeprators NOT, OR or AND. The NOT operator
works on the last argument only.

'/definq NAME VAR'
Use content of the variable VAR for inquiries with NAME. NAME may
be an asterisk ('*') to match any inquiry.

'/definqfile NAME FILE'
Use content of FILE for inquiries with NAME. NAME may be an
asterisk ('*') to match any inquiry.

'/definqprog NAME PROG'
Run PROG for inquiries matching NAME and pass the entire line to it
as command line arguments.

'/datafile NAME'
Write all data lines from the server to the file NAME. The file is
opened for writing and created if it does not exists. An existing
file is first truncated to 0. The data written to the file fully
decoded. Using a single dash for NAME writes to stdout. The file
is kept open until a new file is set using this command or this
command is used without an argument.

'/showdef'
Print all definitions

'/cleardef'
Delete all definitions

'/sendfd FILE MODE'
Open FILE in MODE (which needs to be a valid 'fopen' mode string)
and send the file descriptor to the server. This is usually
followed by a command like 'INPUT FD' to set the input source for
other commands.

'/recvfd'
Not yet implemented.

'/open VAR FILE [MODE]'
Open FILE and assign the file descriptor to VAR. Warning: This
command is experimental and might change in future versions.

'/close FD'
Close the file descriptor FD. Warning: This command is
experimental and might change in future versions.

'/showopen'
Show a list of open files.

'/serverpid'
Send the Assuan command 'GETINFO pid' to the server and store the
returned PID for internal purposes.

'/sleep'
Sleep for a second.

'/hex'
'/nohex'
Same as the command line option '--hex'.

'/decode'
'/nodecode'
Same as the command line option '--decode'.

'/subst'
'/nosubst'
Enable and disable variable substitution. It defaults to disabled
unless the command line option '--subst' has been used. If /subst
as been enabled once, leading whitespace is removed from input
lines which makes scripts easier to read.

'/while CONDITION'
'/end'
These commands provide a way for executing loops. All lines
between the 'while' and the corresponding 'end' are executed as
long as the evaluation of CONDITION yields a non-zero value or is
the string 'true' or 'yes'. The evaluation is done by passing
CONDITION to the 'strtol' function. Example:

/subst
/let i 3
/while $i
/echo loop couter is $i
/let i ${- $i 1}
/end

'/if CONDITION'
'/end'
These commands provide a way for conditional execution. All lines
between the 'if' and the corresponding 'end' are executed only if
the evaluation of CONDITION yields a non-zero value or is the
string 'true' or 'yes'. The evaluation is done by passing
CONDITION to the 'strtol' function.

'/run FILE'
Run commands from FILE.

'/bye'
Terminate the connection and the program

'/help'
Print a list of available control commands.

File: gnupg.info, Node: gpgparsemail, Next: symcryptrun, Prev: gpg-connect-agent, Up: Helper Tools

7.9 Parse a mail message into an annotated format
=================================================

The 'gpgparsemail' is a utility currently only useful for debugging.
Run it with '--help' for usage information.

File: gnupg.info, Node: symcryptrun, Next: gpg-zip, Prev: gpgparsemail, Up: Helper Tools

7.10 Call a simple symmetric encryption tool.
=============================================

Sometimes simple encryption tools are already in use for a long time and
there might be a desire to integrate them into the GnuPG framework. The
protocols and encryption methods might be non-standard or not even
properly documented, so that a full-fledged encryption tool with an
interface like gpg is not doable. 'symcryptrun' provides a solution: It
operates by calling the external encryption/decryption module and
provides a passphrase for a key using the standard 'pinentry' based
mechanism through 'gpg-agent'.

Note, that 'symcryptrun' is only available if GnuPG has been
configured with '--enable-symcryptrun' at build time.

* Menu:

* Invoking symcryptrun:: List of all commands and options.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Invoking symcryptrun, Up: symcryptrun

7.10.1 List of all commands and options.
----------------------------------------

'symcryptrun' is invoked this way:

symcryptrun --class CLASS --program PROGRAM --keyfile KEYFILE
[--decrypt | --encrypt] [inputfile]

For encryption, the plain text must be provided on STDIN or as the
argument INPUTFILE, and the ciphertext will be output to STDOUT. For
decryption vice versa.

CLASS describes the calling conventions of the external tool.
Currently it must be given as 'confucius'. PROGRAM is the full filename
of that external tool.

For the class 'confucius' the option '--keyfile' is required; KEYFILE
is the name of a file containing the secret key, which may be protected
by a passphrase. For detailed calling conventions, see the source code.

Note, that 'gpg-agent' must be running before starting 'symcryptrun'.

The following additional options may be used:

'-v'
'--verbose'
Output additional information while running.

'-q'
'--quiet'
Try to be as quiet as possible.

'--log-file FILE'
Append all logging output to FILE. Default is to write logging
information to STDERR.

The possible exit status codes of 'symcryptrun' are:

'0'
Success.
'1'
Some error occured.
'2'
No valid passphrase was provided.
'3'
The operation was canceled by the user.

File: gnupg.info, Node: gpg-zip, Prev: symcryptrun, Up: Helper Tools

7.11 Encrypt or sign files into an archive
==========================================

'gpg-zip' encrypts or signs files into an archive. It is an gpg-ized
tar using the same format as used by PGP's PGP Zip.

'gpg-zip' is invoked this way:

gpg-zip [options] FILENAME1 [FILENAME2, ...] DIRECTORY [DIRECTORY2, ...]

'gpg-zip' understands these options:

'--encrypt'
'-e'
Encrypt data. This option may be combined with '--symmetric' (for
output that may be decrypted via a secret key or a passphrase).

'--decrypt'
'-d'
Decrypt data.

'--symmetric'
'-c'
Encrypt with a symmetric cipher using a passphrase. The default
symmetric cipher used is CAST5, but may be chosen with the
'--cipher-algo' option to 'gpg'.

'--sign'
'-s'
Make a signature. See 'gpg'.

'--recipient USER'
'-r USER'
Encrypt for user id USER. See 'gpg'.

'--local-user USER'
'-u USER'
Use USER as the key to sign with. See 'gpg'.

'--list-archive'
List the contents of the specified archive.

'--output FILE'
'-o FILE'
Write output to specified file FILE.

'--gpg GPGCMD'
Use the specified command GPGCMD instead of 'gpg'.

'--gpg-args ARGS'
Pass the specified options to 'gpg'.

'--tar TARCMD'
Use the specified command TARCMD instead of 'tar'.

'--tar-args ARGS'
Pass the specified options to 'tar'.

'--version'
Print version of the program and exit.

'--help'
Display a brief help page and exit.

The program returns 0 if everything was fine, 1 otherwise.

Some examples:

Encrypt the contents of directory 'mydocs' for user Bob to file 'test1':

gpg-zip --encrypt --output test1 --gpg-args -r Bob mydocs

List the contents of archive 'test1':

gpg-zip --list-archive test1

File: gnupg.info, Node: Howtos, Next: System Notes, Prev: Helper Tools, Up: Top

8 How to do certain things
**************************

This is a collection of small howto documents.

* Menu:

* Howto Create a Server Cert:: Creating a TLS server certificate.

File: gnupg.info, Node: Howto Create a Server Cert, Up: Howtos

8.1 Creating a TLS server certificate
=====================================

Here is a brief run up on how to create a server certificate. It has
actually been done this way to get a certificate from CAcert to be used
on a real server. It has only been tested with this CA, but there
shouldn't be any problem to run this against any other CA.

Before you start, make sure that gpg-agent is running. As there is
no need for a configuration file, you may simply enter:

$ gpgsm-gencert.sh >a.p10
Key type
[1] RSA
[2] Existing key
[3] Direct from card
Your selection: 1
You selected: RSA

I opted for creating a new RSA key. The other option is to use an
already existing key, by selecting '2' and entering the so-called
keygrip. Running the command 'gpgsm --dump-secret-key USERID' shows you
this keygrip. Using '3' offers another menu to create a certificate
directly from a smart card based key.

Let's continue:

Key length
[1] 1024
[2] 2048
Your selection: 1
You selected: 1024

The script offers two common key sizes. With the current setup of
CAcert, it does not make much sense to use a 2k key; their policies need
to be revised anyway (a CA root key valid for 30 years is not really
serious).

Key usage
[1] sign, encrypt
[2] sign
[3] encrypt
Your selection: 1
You selected: sign, encrypt

We want to sign and encrypt using this key. This is just a
suggestion and the CA may actually assign other key capabilities.

Now for some real data:

Name (DN)
> CN=kerckhoffs.g10code.com

This is the most important value for a server certificate. Enter
here the canonical name of your server machine. You may add other
virtual server names later.

E-Mail addresses (end with an empty line)
>

We don't need email addresses in a server certificate and CAcert
would anyway ignore such a request. Thus just hit enter.

If you want to create a client certificate for email encryption, this
would be the place to enter your mail address (e.g. <joe@example.org>).
You may enter as many addresses as you like, however the CA may not
accept them all or reject the entire request.

DNS Names (optional; end with an empty line)
> www.g10code.com
DNS Names (optional; end with an empty line)
> ftp.g10code.com
DNS Names (optional; end with an empty line)
>

Here I entered the names of the servers which actually run on the
machine given in the DN above. The browser will accept a certificate
for any of these names. As usual the CA must approve all of these
names.

URIs (optional; end with an empty line)
>

It is possible to insert arbitrary URIs into a certificate; for a
server certificate this does not make sense.

We have now entered all required information and 'gpgsm' will display
what it has gathered and ask whether to create the certificate request:

Parameters for certificate request to create:
1 Key-Type: RSA
2 Key-Length: 1024
3 Key-Usage: sign, encrypt
4 Name-DN: CN=kerckhoffs.g10code.com
5 Name-DNS: www.g10code.com
6 Name-DNS: ftp.g10code.com

Really create such a CSR?
[1] yes
[2] no
Your selection: 1
You selected: yes

'gpgsm' will now start working on creating the request. As this
includes the creation of an RSA key it may take a while. During this
time you will be asked 3 times for a passphrase to protect the created
private key on your system. A pop up window will appear to ask for it.
The first two prompts are for the new passphrase and for re-entering it;
the third one is required to actually create the certificate signing
request.

When it is ready, you should see the final notice:

gpgsm: certificate request created

Now, you may look at the created request:

$ cat a.p10
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----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-----END CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----
$

You may now proceed by logging into your account at the CAcert
website, choose 'Server Certificates - New', check 'sign by class 3 root
certificate', paste the above request block into the text field and
click on 'Submit'.

If everything works out fine, a certificate will be shown. Now run

$ gpgsm --import

and paste the certificate from the CAcert page into your terminal
followed by a Ctrl-D

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----
gpgsm: issuer certificate (#/CN=CAcert Class 3 Ro[...]) not found
gpgsm: certificate imported

gpgsm: total number processed: 1
gpgsm: imported: 1

gpgsm tells you that it has imported the certificate. It is now
associated with the key you used when creating the request. The root
certificate has not been found, so you may want to import it from the
CACert website.

To see the content of your certificate, you may now enter:

$ gpgsm -K kerckhoffs.g10code.com
/home/foo/.gnupg/pubring.kbx
---------------------------
Serial number: 4C
Issuer: /CN=CAcert Class 3 Root/OU=http:\x2f\x2fwww.[...]
Subject: /CN=kerckhoffs.g10code.com
aka: (dns-name www.g10code.com)
aka: (dns-name ftp.g10code.com)
validity: 2005-10-28 16:20:51 through 2007-10-28 16:20:51
key type: 1024 bit RSA
key usage: digitalSignature keyEncipherment
ext key usage: clientAuth (suggested), serverAuth (suggested), [...]
fingerprint: 0F:9C:27:B2:DA:05:5F:CB:33:19:D8:E9:65:B9:BD:4F:B1:98:CC:57

I used '-K' above because this will only list certificates for which
a private key is available. To see more details, you may use
'--dump-secret-keys' instead of '-K'.

To make actual use of the certificate you need to install it on your
server. Server software usually expects a PKCS\#12 file with key and
certificate. To create such a file, run:

$ gpgsm --export-secret-key-p12 -a >kerckhoffs-cert.pem

You will be asked for the passphrase as well as for a new passphrase
to be used to protect the PKCS\#12 file. The file now contains the
certificate as well as the private key:

$ cat kerckhoffs-cert.pem
Issuer ...: /CN=CAcert Class 3 Root/OU=http:\x2f\x2fwww.CA[...]
Serial ...: 4C
Subject ..: /CN=kerckhoffs.g10code.com
aka ..: (dns-name www.g10code.com)
aka ..: (dns-name ftp.g10code.com)

-----BEGIN PKCS12-----
MIIHlwIBAzCCB5AGCSqGSIb37QdHAaCCB4EEggd9MIIHeTk1BJ8GCSqGSIb3DQEu
[...many more lines...]
-----END PKCS12-----
$

Copy this file in a secure way to the server, install it there and
delete the file then. You may export the file again at any time as long
as it is available in GnuPG's private key database.