This is gnupg.info, produced by makeinfo version 7.2 from gnupg.texi.

This is the ‘The GNU Privacy Guard Manual’ (version 2.5.18-freepg, March
2026).

   © 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
© 2013, 2014, 2015 Werner Koch.
© 2015, 2016, 2017 g10 Code GmbH.

     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.
* dirmngr: (gnupg).        X.509 CRL and OCSP server.
* dirmngr-client: (gnupg). X.509 CRL and OCSP client.
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 2.5.18-freepg, March
2026).

   © 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
© 2013, 2014, 2015 Werner Koch.
© 2015, 2016, 2017 g10 Code GmbH.

     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".

   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 DIRMNGR::    How to launch the CRL and OCSP 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.
* Trust Values::        How GnuPG displays trust values.

* Smart Card Tool::     Tool to administrate smart cards.
* Helper Tools::        Description of small helper tools.
* Web Key Service::     Tools for the Web Key Service.

* 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.
* Environment Index::   Index to environment variables and files.
* 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 list for advise on how to solve problems or how to
get that whole thing up and running.

   ** Building the software

   Building the software is described 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 ‘gnupg’ using:

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

   This is to make sure that system wide configuration files are
searched in the directory ‘/etc’ 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.

   ** Notes on setting a root CA key to 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.  This feature is enabled by default; you may disable
     it using the option ‘no-allow-mark-trusted’ into ‘gpg-agent.conf’.

   • 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.


File: gnupg.info,  Node: Invoking GPG-AGENT,  Next: Invoking DIRMNGR,  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 agent is automatically started on demand by ‘gpg’, ‘gpgsm’,
‘gpgconf’, or ‘gpg-connect-agent’.  Thus there is no reason to start it
manually.  In case you want to use the included Secure Shell Agent you
may start the agent using:

     gpg-connect-agent /bye

If you want to manually terminate the currently-running agent, you can
safely do so with:

     gpgconf --kill gpg-agent

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 dependent) 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/local/bin/pinentry-gtk’) to the expected one (e.g.,
‘/usr/local/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.

     As an alternative you may create 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; after you exit from this
     shell, gpg-agent terminates within a few seconds.

‘--deprecated-supervised’
     Run in the foreground, sending logs by default to stderr, and
     listening on provided file descriptors, which must already be bound
     to listening sockets.  This option is not supported on Windows and
     deprecated since version 2.3.6.  To clarify its deprecation the
     option has been renamed with version 2.5.3.

     If in ‘common.conf’ the option ‘no-autostart’ is set, any start
     attempts will be ignored.


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

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

Options may either be used on the command line or, after stripping off
the two leading dashes, in the configuration file.

‘--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.  This option is ignored if
     used in an options file.

‘--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 Windows systems) by means of the Registry entry
     HKCU\SOFTWARE\GNU\GNUPG:HOMEDIR.

     On Windows systems it is possible to install GnuPG as a portable
     application.  In this case only this command line option is
     considered, all other ways to set a home directory are ignored.

‘-v’
‘--verbose’
     Outputs additional information while running.  You can increase the
     verbosity by giving several verbose commands to ‘gpg-agent’, 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’
     Set debug flags.  All flags are or-ed and FLAGS may be given in C
     syntax (e.g., 0x0042) or as a comma separated list of flag names.
     To get a list of all supported flags the single word "help" can be
     used.  This option is only useful for debugging and the behavior
     may change at any time without notice.

‘--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-quick-random’
     This option inhibits the use of the very secure random quality
     level (Libgcrypt’s ‘GCRY_VERY_STRONG_RANDOM’) and degrades all
     request down to standard random quality.  It is only used for
     testing and should not be used for any production quality keys.
     This option is only effective when given on the command line.

     On GNU/Linux, another way to quickly generate insecure keys is to
     use ‘rngd’ to fill the kernel's entropy pool with lower quality
     random data.  ‘rngd’ is typically provided by the ‘rng-tools’
     package.  It can be run as follows: ‘sudo rngd -f -r /dev/urandom’.

‘--debug-pinentry’
     This option enables extra debug information pertaining to the
     Pinentry.  As of now it is only useful when used along with
     ‘--debug 1024’.

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

‘--steal-socket’
     In ‘--daemon’ mode, gpg-agent detects an already running gpg-agent
     and does not allow one to start a new instance.  This option can be
     used to override this check: the new gpg-agent process will try to
     take over the communication sockets from the already running
     process and start anyway.  This option should in general not be
     used.

‘-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.

‘--grab’
‘--no-grab’
     Tell the pinentry to grab the keyboard and mouse.  This option
     should be used on X-Servers to avoid X-sniffing attacks.  Any use
     of the option ‘--grab’ overrides an used option ‘--no-grab’.  The
     default is ‘--no-grab’.

‘--log-file FILE’
     Append all logging output to FILE.  This is very helpful in seeing
     what the agent actually does.  Use ‘socket://’ to log to socket.
     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.

‘--no-allow-mark-trusted’
     Do not allow clients to mark keys as trusted, i.e., put them into
     the ‘trustlist.txt’ file.  This makes it harder for users to
     inadvertently accept Root-CA keys.

‘--no-user-trustlist’
     Entirely ignore the user trust list and consider only the global
     trustlist (‘/usr/local/etc/gnupg/trustlist.txt’).  This implies the
     *note option --no-allow-mark-trusted::.

‘--sys-trustlist-name FILE’
     Changes the default name for the global trustlist from
     "trustlist.txt" to FILE.  If FILE does not contain any slashes and
     does not start with "~/" it is searched in the system configuration
     directory (‘/usr/local/etc/gnupg’).

‘--allow-preset-passphrase’
     This option allows the use of ‘gpg-preset-passphrase’ to seed the
     internal cache of ‘gpg-agent’ with passphrases.

‘--no-allow-loopback-pinentry’
‘--allow-loopback-pinentry’
     Disallow or allow clients to use the loopback pinentry features;
     see the option ‘pinentry-mode’ for details.  Allow is the default.

     The ‘--force’ option of the Assuan command ‘DELETE_KEY’ is also
     controlled by this option: The option is ignored if a loopback
     pinentry is disallowed.

‘--no-allow-external-cache’
     Tell Pinentry not to enable features which use an external cache
     for passphrases.

     Some desktop environments prefer to unlock all credentials with one
     master password and may have installed a Pinentry which employs an
     additional external cache to implement such a policy.  By using
     this option the Pinentry is advised not to make use of such a cache
     and instead always ask the user for the requested passphrase.

‘--allow-emacs-pinentry’
     Tell Pinentry to allow features to divert the passphrase entry to a
     running Emacs instance.  How this is exactly handled depends on the
     version of the used Pinentry.

‘--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 behavior 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.  Each time a cache entry is accessed, the entry's
     timer is reset.  To set an entry's maximum lifetime, use
     ‘max-cache-ttl’.

‘--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.  Each time a cache entry is accessed,
     the entry's timer is reset.  To set an entry's maximum lifetime,
     use ‘max-cache-ttl-ssh’.

‘--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-sym-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.  If FILE does not contain any slashes and does
     not start with "~/" it is searched in the system configuration
     directory (‘/usr/local/etc/gnupg’).  The default is not to use any
     pattern file.  The second version of this option is only used when
     creating a new symmetric key to allow the use of different patterns
     for such passphrases.

     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-invisible-char CHAR’
     This option asks the Pinentry to use CHAR for displaying hidden
     characters.  CHAR must be one character UTF-8 string.  A Pinentry
     may or may not honor this request.

‘--pinentry-timeout N’
     This option asks the Pinentry to timeout after N seconds with no
     user input.  The default value of 0 does not ask the pinentry to
     timeout, however a Pinentry may use its own default timeout value
     in this case.  A Pinentry may or may not honor this request.

‘--pinentry-formatted-passphrase’
     This option asks the Pinentry to enable passphrase formatting when
     asking the user for a new passphrase and masking of the passphrase
     is turned off.

     If passphrase formatting is enabled, then all non-breaking space
     characters are stripped from the entered passphrase.  Passphrase
     formatting is mostly useful in combination with passphrases
     generated with the GENPIN feature of some Pinentries.  Note that
     such a generated passphrase, if not modified by the user, skips all
     passphrase constraints checking because such constraints would
     actually weaken the generated passphrase.

‘--pinentry-program FILENAME’
     Use program FILENAME as the PIN entry.  The default is installation
     dependent.  With the default configuration the name of the default
     pinentry is ‘pinentry’; if that file does not exist but a
     ‘pinentry-basic’ exist the latter is used.

     On a Windows platform the default is to use the first existing
     program from this list: ‘bin\pinentry.exe’,
     ‘..\Gpg4win\bin\pinentry.exe’, ‘..\Gpg4win\pinentry.exe’,
     ‘..\GNU\GnuPG\pinentry.exe’, ‘..\GNU\bin\pinentry.exe’,
     ‘bin\pinentry-basic.exe’ where the file names are relative to the
     GnuPG installation directory.

‘--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.

‘--disable-check-own-socket’
     ‘gpg-agent’ employs a periodic self-test to detect a stolen socket.
     This usually means a second instance of ‘gpg-agent’ has taken over
     the socket and ‘gpg-agent’ will then terminate itself.  This option
     may be used to disable this self-test for debugging purposes.

‘--use-standard-socket’
‘--no-use-standard-socket’
‘--use-standard-socket-p’
     Since GnuPG 2.1 the standard socket is always used.  These options
     have no more effect.  The command ‘gpg-agent
     --use-standard-socket-p’ will thus always return success.

‘--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.

‘--change-std-env-name -NAME’
     The agent uses a fixed list of environment variables which are
     passed on to the Pinentry.  This option allows to remove variables
     from that list.  For example:
            change-std-env-name -DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS

‘--listen-backlog N’
     Set the size of the queue for pending connections.  The default is
     64.

‘--extra-socket NAME’
     The extra socket is created by default, you may use this option to
     change the name of the socket.  To disable the creation of the
     socket use "none" or "/dev/null" for NAME.

     Also listen on native gpg-agent connections on the given socket.
     The intended use for this extra socket is to setup a Unix domain
     socket forwarding from a remote machine to this socket on the local
     machine.  A ‘gpg’ running on the remote machine may then connect to
     the local gpg-agent and use its private keys.  This enables
     decrypting or signing data on a remote machine without exposing the
     private keys to the remote machine.

‘--enable-extended-key-format’
‘--disable-extended-key-format’
     These options are obsolete and have no effect.  The extended key
     format is used for years now and has been supported since 2.1.12.
     Existing keys in the old format are migrated to the new format as
     soon as they are touched.

‘--enable-ssh-support’
‘--enable-win32-openssh-support’
‘--enable-putty-support’

     On Unix platforms the OpenSSH Agent protocol is always enabled, but
     ‘gpg-agent’ will only set the ‘SSH_AUTH_SOCK’ variable if the
     option ‘enable-ssh-support’ is given.  Some Linux distributions use
     the presence of this option to decide whether the old ssh-agent
     shall be started.

     On Windows support for the native ssh implementation must be
     enabled using the the option ‘enable-win32-openssh-support’.  For
     using gpg-agent as a replacement for PuTTY's Pageant, the option
     ‘enable-putty-support’ must be enabled.

     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 or via Named Pipes) or the protocol used
     by PuTTY. Consequently, this allows one to use the gpg-agent as a
     drop-in replacement for the 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 able 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.

     The ‘--enable-putty-support’ is only available under Windows and
     allows the use of gpg-agent with the ssh implementation ‘putty’.
     This is similar to the regular ssh-agent support but makes use of
     Windows message queue as required by ‘putty’.

     The order in which keys are presented to ssh are:

     ‘Negative Use-for-ssh values’
          If a key file has the attribute "Use-for-ssh" and its value is
          negative, these keys are presented first to ssh.  The negative
          values are capped at -999 with -999 being lower ranked than
          -1.  These values can be used to prefer on-disk keys over keys
          taken from active cards.

     ‘Active cards’
          Active cards (inserted into a card reader or plugged in
          tokens) are always tried; they are ordered by their serial
          numbers.

     ‘Keys listed in the sshcontrol file’
          Non-disabled keys from the sshcontrol file are presented in
          the order they appear in this file.  Note that the sshcontrol
          file is deprecated.

     ‘Positive Use-for-ssh values’
          If a key file has the attribute "Use-for-ssh" and its value is
          "yes", "true", or any positive number the key is presented in
          the order of their values.  "yes" and "true" have a value of
          1; other values are capped at 99999.

     Editing the "Use-for-ssh" values can be done with an editor or
     using ‘gpg-connect-agent’ and "KEYATTR" (Remember to append a colon
     to the key; i.e., use "Use-for-ssh:").

‘--ssh-fingerprint-digest’

     Select the digest algorithm used to compute ssh fingerprints that
     are communicated to the user, e.g., in pinentry dialogs.  OpenSSH
     has transitioned from using MD5 to the more secure SHA256.

‘--auto-expand-secmem N’
     Allow Libgcrypt to expand its secure memory area as required.  The
     optional value N is a non-negative integer with a suggested size in
     bytes of each additionally allocated secure memory area.  The value
     is rounded up to the next 32 KiB; usual C style prefixes are
     allowed.  For an heavy loaded gpg-agent with many concurrent
     connection this option avoids sign or decrypt errors due to out of
     secure memory error returns.

‘--s2k-calibration MILLISECONDS’
     Change the default calibration time to MILLISECONDS.  The given
     value is capped at 60 seconds; a value of 0 resets to the
     compiled-in default.  This option is re-read on a SIGHUP (or
     ‘gpgconf --reload gpg-agent’) and the S2K count is then
     re-calibrated.

‘--s2k-count N’
     Specify the iteration count used to protect the passphrase.  This
     option can be used to override the auto-calibration done by
     default.  The auto-calibration computes a count which requires by
     default 100ms to mangle a given passphrase.  See also
     ‘--s2k-calibration’.

     To view the actually used iteration count and the milliseconds
     required for an S2K operation use:

          gpg-connect-agent 'GETINFO s2k_count' /bye
          gpg-connect-agent 'GETINFO s2k_time' /bye

     To view the auto-calibrated count use:

          gpg-connect-agent 'GETINFO s2k_count_cal' /bye


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
     enables cutting and pasting 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
     disallowing interactive updates of this file by using the *note
     option --no-allow-mark-trusted::.  It might even be 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.,
     ‘/usr/local/etc/gnupg/trustlist.txt’).  This global list is also
     used if the local list is not available; the *note option
     --no-user-trustlist:: enforces the use of only this global list.

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

     ‘relax’
     ‘norelax’
          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.  This is by default enabled.  Use "norelax" to
          disable it.

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

     ‘qual’
          The CA is allowed to issue certificates for qualified
          signatures.  This flag has an effect only if used in the
          global list.  This is now the preferred way to mark such CA;
          the old way of having a separate file ‘qualified.txt’ is still
          supported.

     ‘noconsent’
          Do not require consent from a user to create a qualified
          signature.

     ‘de-vs’
          The CA is part of an approved PKI for the German
          classification level VS-NfD. It is only valid in the global
          trustlist.  As of now this is used only for documentation
          purpose.

‘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.

     This file is deprecated in favor of the "Use-for-ssh" attribute in
     the key files.

     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.

     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 ‘/usr/local/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’, ‘debug-pinentry’, ‘no-grab’,
     ‘pinentry-program’, ‘pinentry-invisible-char’, ‘default-cache-ttl’,
     ‘max-cache-ttl’, ‘ignore-cache-for-signing’, ‘s2k-count’,
     ‘no-allow-external-cache’, ‘allow-emacs-pinentry’,
     ‘no-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
============

It is important to set the environment variable ‘GPG_TTY’ in your login
shell, for example in the ‘~/.bashrc’ init script:

       export GPG_TTY=$(tty)

   If you enabled the Ssh Agent Support, you also need to tell ssh about
it by adding this to your init script:

     unset SSH_AGENT_PID
     if [ "${gnupg_SSH_AUTH_SOCK_by:-0}" -ne $$ ]; then
       export SSH_AUTH_SOCK="$(gpgconf --list-dirs agent-ssh-socket)"
     fi


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.  To see
the full specification of each command, use

       gpg-connect-agent 'help COMMAND' /bye

or just 'help' to list all available commands.

The ‘gpg-agent’ daemon is started on demand by the GnuPG components.

   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.

   The ‘gpg-agent’ may send status messages during a command or when
returning from a command to inform a client about the progress or result
of an operation.  For example, the INQUIRE_MAXLEN status message may be
sent during a server inquire to inform the client of the maximum usable
length of the inquired data (which should not be exceeded).

* 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 PRESET_PASSPHRASE:: Set a passphrase for a keygrip
* 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 decryption 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 asks 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 tests 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’
     The SHA-1 hash algorithm
‘sha256’
     The SHA-256 hash algorithm
‘rmd160’
     The RIPE-MD160 hash algorithm
‘md5’
     The old and broken MD5 hash algorithm
‘tls-md5sha1’
     A combined hash algorithm as used by the TLS protocol.

The actual signing is done using

        PKSIGN <options>

   Options are not yet defined, but may 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. A not-yet-defined
option allows choosing the storage location.  To get the secret key out
of the PSE, a special export tool has to be used.

        GENKEY [--no-protection] [--preset] [<cache_nonce>]

   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

   The ‘--no-protection’ option may be used to prevent prompting for a
passphrase to protect the secret key while leaving the secret key
unprotected.  The ‘--preset’ option may be used to add the passphrase to
the cache using the default cache parameters.

   The ‘--inq-passwd’ option may be used to create the key with a
supplied passphrase.  When used the agent does an inquiry with the
keyword ‘NEWPASSWD’ to retrieve that passphrase.  This option takes
precedence over ‘--no-protection’; however if the client sends a empty
(zero-length) passphrase, this is identical to ‘--no-protection’.


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 ourselves, 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:

         OK

   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
symmetric 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 PRESET_PASSPHRASE,  Prev: Agent GET_PASSPHRASE,  Up: Agent Protocol

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

Use this command to remove a cached passphrase.

       CLEAR_PASSPHRASE [--mode=normal] <cache_id>

   The ‘--mode=normal’ option can be used to clear a CACHE_ID that was
set by gpg-agent.


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

2.6.9 Set a passphrase for a keygrip
------------------------------------

This command adds a passphrase to the cache for the specified KEYGRIP.

       PRESET_PASSPHRASE [--inquire] <string_or_keygrip> <timeout> [<hexstring>]

   The passphrase is a hexadecimal string when specified.  When not
specified, the passphrase will be retrieved from the pinentry module
unless the ‘--inquire’ option was specified in which case the passphrase
will be retrieved from the client.

   The TIMEOUT parameter keeps the passphrase cached for the specified
number of seconds.  A value of ‘-1’ means infinite while ‘0’ means the
default (currently only a timeout of -1 is allowed, which means to never
expire it).


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

2.6.10 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

2.6.11 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

2.6.12 Register a smartcard
---------------------------

       LEARN [--send]

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


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

2.6.13 Change a Passphrase
--------------------------

       PASSWD [--cache-nonce=<c>] [--passwd-nonce=<s>] [--preset] KEYGRIP

   This command is used to interactively change the passphrase of the
key identified by the hex string KEYGRIP.  The ‘--preset’ option may be
used to add the new passphrase to the cache using the default cache
parameters.


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

2.6.14 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

2.6.15 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:
‘ANY’
     Incremented with any change of any of the other counters.
‘KEY’
     Incremented for added or removed private keys.
‘CARD’
     Incremented for each change of the card reader's status.


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

2.6.16 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

2.6.17 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.

‘pinentry-mode’
     This option is used to change the operation mode of the pinentry.
     The following values are defined:

     ‘ask’
          This is the default mode which pops up a pinentry as needed.

     ‘cancel’
          Instead of popping up a pinentry, return the error code
          ‘GPG_ERR_CANCELED’.

     ‘error’
          Instead of popping up a pinentry, return the error code
          ‘GPG_ERR_NO_PIN_ENTRY’.

     ‘loopback’
          Use a loopback pinentry.  This fakes a pinentry by using
          inquiries back to the caller to ask for a passphrase.  This
          option may only be set if the agent has been configured for
          that.  To disable this feature use *note option
          --no-allow-loopback-pinentry::.

‘cache-ttl-opt-preset’
     This option sets the cache TTL for new entries created by GENKEY
     and PASSWD commands when using the ‘--preset’ option.  It is not
     used a default value is used.

‘s2k-count’
     Instead of using the standard S2K count (which is computed on the
     fly), the given S2K count is used for new keys or when changing the
     passphrase of a key.  Values below 65536 are considered to be 0.
     This option is valid for the entire session or until reset to 0.
     This option is useful if the key is later used on boxes which are
     either much slower or faster than the actual box.

‘pretend-request-origin’
     This option switches the connection into a restricted mode which
     handles all further commands in the same way as they would be
     handled when originating from the extra or browser socket.  Note
     that this option is not available in the restricted mode.  Valid
     values for this option are:

     ‘none’
     ‘local’
          This is a NOP and leaves the connection in the standard way.

     ‘remote’
          Pretend to come from a remote origin in the same way as
          connections from the ‘--extra-socket’.

     ‘browser’
          Pretend to come from a local web browser in the same way as
          connections from the ‘--browser-socket’.


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

3 Invoking DIRMNGR
******************

Since version 2.1 of GnuPG, ‘dirmngr’ takes care of accessing the
OpenPGP keyservers.  As with previous versions it is also used as a
server for managing and downloading certificate revocation lists (CRLs)
for X.509 certificates, downloading X.509 certificates, and providing
access to OCSP providers.  Dirmngr is invoked internally by ‘gpg’,
‘gpgsm’, or via the ‘gpg-connect-agent’ tool.

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

* Menu:

* Dirmngr Commands::      List of all commands.
* Dirmngr Options::       List of all options.
* Dirmngr Configuration:: Configuration files.
* Dirmngr Signals::       Use of signals.
* Dirmngr Examples::      Some usage examples.
* Dirmngr Protocol::      The protocol dirmngr uses.


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

3.1 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.
     This is only used for testing.

‘--daemon’
     Run in background daemon mode and listen for commands on a socket.
     This is the way ‘dirmngr’ is started on demand by the other GnuPG
     components.  To force starting ‘dirmngr’ it is in general best to
     use ‘gpgconf --launch dirmngr’.

‘--deprecated-supervised’
     Run in the foreground, sending logs to stderr, and listening on
     file descriptor 3, which must already be bound to a listening
     socket.  This option is not supported on Windows and deprecated
     since version 2.3.6.  To clarify its deprecation the option has
     been renamed with version 2.5.3.

‘--list-crls’
     List the contents of the CRL cache on ‘stdout’.  This is probably
     only useful for debugging purposes.

‘--load-crl FILE’
     This command requires a filename as additional argument, and it
     will make Dirmngr try to import the CRL in FILE into it's cache.
     Note, that this is only possible if Dirmngr is able to retrieve the
     CA's certificate directly by its own means.  In general it is
     better to use ‘gpgsm’'s ‘--call-dirmngr loadcrl filename’ command
     so that ‘gpgsm’ can help dirmngr.

‘--fetch-crl URL’
     This command requires an URL as additional argument, and it will
     make dirmngr try to retrieve and import the CRL from that URL into
     it's cache.  This is mainly useful for debugging purposes.  The
     ‘dirmngr-client’ provides the same feature for a running dirmngr.

‘--shutdown’
     This commands shuts down an running instance of Dirmngr.  This
     command has currently no effect.

‘--flush’
     This command removes all CRLs from Dirmngr's cache.  Client
     requests will thus trigger reading of fresh CRLs.


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

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

Note that all long options with the exception of ‘--options’ and
‘--homedir’ may also be given in the configuration file after stripping
off the two leading dashes.

‘--options FILE’
     Reads configuration from FILE instead of from the default per-user
     configuration file.  The default configuration file is named
     ‘dirmngr.conf’ and expected in the home directory.

‘--homedir DIR’
     Set the name of the home directory to DIR.  This option is only
     effective when used on the command line.  The default is the
     directory named ‘.gnupg’ directly below the home directory of the
     user unless the environment variable ‘GNUPGHOME’ has been set in
     which case its value will be used.  Many kinds of data are stored
     within this directory.

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

‘--log-file FILE’
     Append all logging output to FILE.  This is very helpful in seeing
     what the agent actually does.  Use ‘socket://’ to log to socket.

‘--compatibility-flags FLAGS’
     Set compatibility flags to work around certain problems or to
     emulate bugs.  The FLAGS are given as a comma separated list of
     flag names and are OR-ed together.  The special flag "none" clears
     the list and allows one to start over with an empty list.  To get a
     list of available flags the sole word "help" can be used.

‘--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").

‘--debug-level LEVEL’
     Select the debug level for investigating problems.  LEVEL may be a
     numeric value or by 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’
     Set debug flags.  All flags are or-ed and FLAGS may be given in C
     syntax (e.g., 0x0042) or as a comma separated list of flag names.
     To get a list of all supported flags the single word "help" can be
     used.  This option is only useful for debugging and the behavior
     may change at any time without notice.

‘--debug-all’
     Same as ‘--debug=0xffffffff’

‘--tls-debug LEVEL’
     Enable debugging of the TLS layer at LEVEL.  The details of the
     debug level depend on the used TLS library and are not set in
     stone.

‘--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.

‘--disable-check-own-socket’
     On some platforms ‘dirmngr’ is able to detect the removal of its
     socket file and shutdown itself.  This option disable this
     self-test for debugging purposes.

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

‘--force’
     Enabling this option forces loading of expired CRLs; this is only
     useful for debugging.

‘--use-tor’
‘--no-use-tor’
     The option ‘--use-tor’ switches Dirmngr and thus GnuPG into "Tor
     mode" to route all network access via Tor (an anonymity network).
     Certain other features are disabled in this mode.  The effect of
     ‘--use-tor’ cannot be overridden by any other command or even by
     reloading dirmngr.  The use of ‘--no-use-tor’ disables the use of
     Tor.  The default is to use Tor if it is available on startup or
     after reloading dirmngr.  The test on the availability of Tor is
     done by trying to connect to a SOCKS proxy at either port 9050 or
     9150; if another type of proxy is listening on one of these ports,
     you should use ‘--no-use-tor’.

‘--standard-resolver’
     This option forces the use of the system's standard DNS resolver
     code.  This is mainly used for debugging.  Note that on Windows a
     standard resolver is not used and all DNS access will return the
     error "Not Implemented" if this option is used.  Using this
     together with enabled Tor mode returns the error "Not Enabled".

‘--recursive-resolver’
     When possible use a recursive resolver instead of a stub resolver.

‘--resolver-timeout N’
     Set the timeout for the DNS resolver to N seconds.  The default are
     30 seconds.

‘--connect-timeout N’
‘--connect-quick-timeout N’
     Set the timeout for HTTP and generic TCP connection attempts to N
     seconds.  The value set with the quick variant is used when the
     ‘--quick’ option has been given to certain Assuan commands.  The
     quick value is capped at the value of the regular connect timeout.
     The default values are 15 and 2 seconds.  Note that the timeout
     values are for each connection attempt; the connection code will
     attempt to connect all addresses listed for a server.

‘--listen-backlog N’
     Set the size of the queue for pending connections.  The default is
     64.

‘--allow-version-check’
     Allow Dirmngr to connect to ‘https://versions.gnupg.org’ to get the
     list of current software versions.  If this option is enabled the
     list is retrieved in case the local copy does not exist or is older
     than 5 to 7 days.  See the option ‘--query-swdb’ of the command
     ‘gpgconf’ for more details.  Note, that regardless of this option a
     version check can always be triggered using this command:

                 gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'loadswdb --force' /bye

‘--keyserver NAME’
     Use NAME as your keyserver.  This is the server that ‘gpg’
     communicates with to receive keys, send keys, and search for keys.
     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 or "ldap" for the LDAP keyservers.  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 ‘--keyserver-options’
     of ‘gpg’, but apply only to this particular keyserver.

     Some keyservers synchronize with each other, so there is not always
     a need to send keys to more than one server.  Some keyservers use
     round robin DNS to give a different keyserver each time you use it.

     If exactly two keyservers are configured and only one is a Tor
     hidden service (.onion), Dirmngr selects the keyserver to use
     depending on whether Tor is locally running or not.  The check for
     a running Tor is done for each new connection.

     If no keyserver is explicitly configured, dirmngr will use the
     built-in default of ‘https://keyserver.ubuntu.com’.  To avoid the
     use of a default keyserver the value ‘none’ can be used.

     Windows users with a keyserver running on their Active Directory
     may use the short form ‘ldap:///’ for NAME to access this
     directory.

     For accessing anonymous LDAP keyservers NAME is in general just a
     ‘ldaps://ldap.example.com’.  A BaseDN parameter should never be
     specified.  If authentication is required things are more
     complicated and two methods are available:

     The modern method (since version 2.2.28) is to use the very same
     syntax as used with the option ‘--ldapserver’.  Please see over
     there for details; here is an example:

                 keyserver ldap:ldap.example.com::uid=USERNAME,ou=GnuPG Users,
                 dc=example,dc=com:PASSWORD::starttls

     The other method is to use a full URL for NAME; for example:

                 keyserver ldaps://ldap.example.com/????bindname=uid=USERNAME
                 %2Cou=GnuPG%20Users%2Cdc=example%2Cdc=com,password=PASSWORD

     Put this all on one line without any spaces and keep the '%2C' as
     given.  Replace USERNAME, PASSWORD, and the 'dc' parts according to
     the instructions received from your LDAP administrator.  Note that
     only simple authentication (i.e., cleartext passwords) is supported
     and thus using ldaps is strongly suggested (since 2.2.28 "ldaps"
     defaults to port 389 and uses STARTTLS). On Windows authentication
     via AD can be requested by adding ‘gpgNtds=1’ after the fourth
     question mark instead of the bindname and password parameter.

‘--nameserver IPADDR’
     In "Tor mode" Dirmngr uses a public resolver via Tor to resolve DNS
     names.  If the default public resolver, which is ‘8.8.8.8’, shall
     not be used a different one can be given using this option.  Note
     that a numerical IP address must be given (IPv6 or IPv4) and that
     no error checking is done for IPADDR.

‘--disable-ipv4’
‘--disable-ipv6’
     Disable the use of all IPv4 or IPv6 addresses.

‘--disable-ldap’
     Entirely disables the use of LDAP.

‘--disable-http’
     Disable the use of HTTP to fetch CRLs.  This also disables OCSP
     requests as a side-effect.  HTTP access to keyservers and to other
     files will still work.  This is a legacy option from a time before
     CRL distribution points became common; it is better to use the
     explicit option ‘--ignore-http-dp’ if the goal is to avoid fetching
     CRLs via HTTP.

‘--ignore-http-dp’
     When looking for the location of a CRL, the to be tested
     certificate usually contains so called “CRL Distribution Point”
     (DP) entries which are URLs describing the way to access the CRL.
     The first found DP entry is used.  With this option all entries
     using the HTTP scheme are ignored when looking for a suitable DP.

‘--ignore-ldap-dp’
     This is similar to ‘--ignore-http-dp’ but ignores entries using the
     LDAP scheme.  Both options may be combined resulting in ignoring
     DPs entirely.

‘--ignore-ocsp-service-url’
     Ignore all OCSP URLs contained in the certificate.  The effect is
     to force the use of the default responder.

‘--user-agent STRING’
     Change the default User-Agent for HTTP requests to STRING.  If
     STRING is empty or has the value "none" no User-Agent header will
     be used.

‘--honor-http-proxy’
     If the environment variable ‘http_proxy’ has been set, use its
     value to access HTTP servers.  If on Windows the option is used but
     the environment variable is not set, the proxy settings are taken
     from the system.

‘--http-proxy HOST[:PORT]’
     Use HOST and PORT to access HTTP servers.  The use of this option
     overrides the environment variable ‘http_proxy’ regardless whether
     ‘--honor-http-proxy’ has been set.

‘--ldap-proxy HOST[:PORT]’
     Use HOST and PORT to connect to LDAP servers.  If PORT is omitted,
     port 389 (standard LDAP port) is used.  This overrides any
     specified host and port part in a LDAP URL and will also be used if
     host and port have been omitted from the URL.

‘--only-ldap-proxy’
     Never use anything else but the LDAP "proxy" as configured with
     ‘--ldap-proxy’.  Usually ‘dirmngr’ tries to use other configured
     LDAP server if the connection using the "proxy" failed.

‘--ldapserverlist-file FILE’
     Read the list of LDAP servers to consult for CRLs and X.509
     certificates from file instead of the default per-user ldap server
     list file.  The default value for FILE is
     ‘dirmngr_ldapservers.conf’.

     This server list file contains one LDAP server per line in the
     format

     HOSTNAME:PORT:USERNAME:PASSWORD:BASE_DN:FLAGS

     Lines starting with a ‘#’ are comments.

     Note that as usual all strings entered are expected to be UTF-8
     encoded.  Obviously this will lead to problems if the password has
     originally been encoded as Latin-1.  There is no other solution
     here than to put such a password in the binary encoding into the
     file (i.e., non-ascii characters won't show up readable).(1)

‘--ldapserver SPEC’
     This is an alternative way to specify LDAP servers for CRL and
     X.509 certificate retrieval.  If this option is used the servers
     configured in ‘dirmngr_ldapservers.conf’ (or the file given by
     ‘--ldapserverlist-file’) are cleared.  Note that
     ‘dirmngr_ldapservers.conf’ is not read again by a reload signal.
     However, ‘--ldapserver’ options are read again.

     SPEC is either a proper LDAP URL or a colon delimited list of the
     form

     HOSTNAME:PORT:USERNAME:PASSWORD:BASE_DN:FLAGS:

     with an optional prefix of ‘ldap:’ (but without the two slashes
     which would turn this into a proper LDAP URL). FLAGS is a list of
     one or more comma delimited keywords:
     ‘plain’
          The default: Do not use a TLS secured connection at all; the
          default port is 389.
     ‘starttls’
          Use STARTTLS to secure the connection; the default port is
          389.
     ‘ldaptls’
          Tunnel LDAP through a TLS connection; the default port is 636.
     ‘ntds’
          On Windows authenticate the LDAP connection using the Active
          Directory with the current user.
     ‘areconly’
          On Windows use only the A or AAAA record when resolving the
          LDAP server name.
     ‘upload’
          This server is only used for uploading (sending) data to an
          LDAP server.

     Note that in an URL style specification the scheme ‘ldaps://’
     refers to STARTTLS and _not_ to LDAP-over-TLS.

‘--ldaptimeout SECS’
     Specify the number of seconds to wait for an LDAP query before
     timing out.  The default are 15 seconds.  0 will never timeout.

‘--add-servers’
     This option makes dirmngr add any servers it discovers when
     validating certificates against CRLs to the internal list of
     servers to consult for certificates and CRLs.  This option should
     in general not be used.

     This option might be useful when trying to validate a certificate
     that has a CRL distribution point that points to a server that is
     not already listed in the ldapserverlist.  Dirmngr will always go
     to this server and try to download the CRL, but chances are high
     that the certificate used to sign the CRL is located on the same
     server.  So if dirmngr doesn't add that new server to list, it will
     often not be able to verify the signature of the CRL unless the
     ‘--add-servers’ option is used.

     Caveat emptor: Using this option may enable denial-of-service
     attacks and leak search requests to unknown third parties.  This is
     because arbitrary servers are added to the internal list of LDAP
     servers which in turn is used for all unspecific LDAP queries as
     well as a fallback for queries which did not return a result.

‘--allow-ocsp’
     This option enables OCSP support if requested by the client.

     OCSP requests are rejected by default because they may violate the
     privacy of the user; for example it is possible to track the time
     when a user is reading a mail.

‘--ocsp-responder URL’
     Use URL as the default OCSP Responder if the certificate does not
     contain information about an assigned responder.  Note, that
     ‘--ocsp-signer’ must also be set to a valid certificate.

‘--ocsp-signer FPR|FILE’
     Use the certificate with the fingerprint FPR to check the responses
     of the default OCSP Responder.  Alternatively a filename can be
     given in which case the response is expected to be signed by one of
     the certificates described in that file.  Any argument which
     contains a slash, dot or tilde is considered a filename.  Usual
     filename expansion takes place: A tilde at the start followed by a
     slash is replaced by the content of ‘HOME’, no slash at start
     describes a relative filename which will be searched at the home
     directory.  To make sure that the FILE is searched in the home
     directory, either prepend the name with "./" or use a name which
     contains a dot.

     If a response has been signed by a certificate described by these
     fingerprints no further check upon the validity of this certificate
     is done.

     The format of the FILE is a list of SHA-1 fingerprint, one per line
     with optional colons between the bytes.  Empty lines and lines
     prefix with a hash mark are ignored.

‘--ocsp-max-clock-skew N’
     The number of seconds a skew between the OCSP responder and them
     local clock is accepted.  Default is 600 (10 minutes).

‘--ocsp-max-period N’
     Seconds a response is at maximum considered valid after the time
     given in the thisUpdate field.  Default is 7776000 (90 days).

‘--ocsp-current-period N’
     The number of seconds an OCSP response is considered valid after
     the time given in the NEXT_UPDATE datum.  Default is 10800 (3
     hours).

‘--max-replies N’
     Do not return more that N items in one query.  The default is 10.

‘--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 won't be
     rejected due to an unknown critical extension.  Use this option
     with care because extensions are usually flagged as critical for a
     reason.

‘--ignore-crl-extension OID’
     Add OID to the list of ignored CRL extensions.  The OID is expected
     to be in dotted decimal form.  Critical flagged CRL extensions
     matching one of the OIDs in the list are treated as if they are
     actually handled and thus the certificate won't be rejected due to
     an unknown critical extension.  Use this option with care because
     extensions are usually flagged as critical for a reason.

‘--ignore-cert FPR|FILE’
     Entirely ignore certificates with the fingerprint FPR.  As an
     alternative to the fingerprint a filename can be given in which
     case all certificates described in that file are ignored.  Any
     argument which contains a slash, dot or tilde is considered a
     filename.  Usual filename expansion takes place: A tilde at the
     start followed by a slash is replaced by the content of ‘HOME’, no
     slash at start describes a relative filename which will be searched
     at the home directory.  To make sure that the FILE is searched in
     the home directory, either prepend the name with "./" or use a name
     which contains a dot.  The format of such a file is a list of SHA-1
     fingerprint, one per line with optional colons between the bytes.
     Empty lines and lines prefixed with a hash mark are ignored.

     This option is useful as a quick workaround to exclude certain
     certificates from the system store.

‘--hkp-cacert FILE’
     Use the root certificates in FILE for verification of the TLS
     certificates used with ‘hkps’ (keyserver access over TLS). If the
     file is in PEM format a suffix of ‘.pem’ is expected for FILE.
     This option may be given multiple times to add more root
     certificates.  Tilde expansion is supported.

     If no ‘hkp-cacert’ directive is present, dirmngr will use the
     system CAs.

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

   (1) The ‘gpgconf’ tool might be helpful for frontends as it enables
editing this configuration file using percent-escaped strings.


File: gnupg.info,  Node: Dirmngr Configuration,  Next: Dirmngr Signals,  Prev: Dirmngr Options,  Up: Invoking DIRMNGR

3.3 Configuration
=================

Dirmngr makes use of several directories when running in daemon mode:
There are a few configuration files to control the operation of dirmngr.
By default they may all be found in the current home directory (*note
option --homedir::).

‘dirmngr.conf’
     This is the standard configuration file read by ‘dirmngr’ 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 not all options
     will actually have an effect.  This default name may be changed on
     the command line (*note option --options::).  You should backup
     this file.

‘/etc/gnupg/trusted-certs’
     This directory should be filled with certificates of Root CAs you
     are trusting in checking the CRLs and signing OCSP Responses.

     Usually these are the same certificates you use with the
     applications making use of dirmngr.  It is expected that each of
     these certificate files contain exactly one DER encoded certificate
     in a file with the suffix ‘.crt’ or ‘.der’.  ‘dirmngr’ reads those
     certificates on startup and when given a SIGHUP. Certificates which
     are not readable or do not make up a proper X.509 certificate are
     ignored; see the log file for details.

     Applications using dirmngr (e.g., gpgsm) can request these
     certificates to complete a trust chain in the same way as with the
     extra-certs directory (see below).

     Note that for OCSP responses the certificate specified using the
     option ‘--ocsp-signer’ is always considered valid to sign OCSP
     requests.

‘/etc/gnupg/extra-certs’
     This directory may contain extra certificates which are preloaded
     into the internal cache on startup.  Applications using dirmngr
     (e.g., gpgsm) can request cached certificates to complete a trust
     chain.  This is convenient in cases you have a couple intermediate
     CA certificates or certificates usually used to sign OCSP
     responses.  These certificates are first tried before going out to
     the net to look for them.  These certificates must also be DER
     encoded and suffixed with ‘.crt’ or ‘.der’.

‘~/.gnupg/crls.d’
     This directory is used to store cached CRLs.  The ‘crls.d’ part
     will be created by dirmngr if it does not exists but you need to
     make sure that the upper directory exists.

   Several options control the use of trusted certificates for TLS and
CRLs.  Here is an Overview on the use and origin of those Root CA
certificates:

System

     These System root certificates are used by: FIXME

     The origin of the system provided certificates depends on the
     platform.  On Windows all certificates from the Windows System
     Stores ‘ROOT’ and ‘CA’ are used.

     On other platforms the certificates are read from the first file
     found form this list: ‘/etc/ssl/ca-bundle.pem’,
     ‘/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt’, ‘/etc/pki/tls/cert.pem’,
     ‘/usr/local/share/certs/ca-root-nss.crt’, ‘/etc/ssl/cert.pem’.

GnuPG

     The GnuPG specific certificates stored in the directory
     ‘/etc/gnupg/trusted-certs’ are only used to validate CRLs.

OpenPGP keyserver

     For accessing the OpenPGP keyservers the only certificates used are
     those set with the configuration option ‘hkp-cacert’.

OpenPGP keyserver pool

     This is usually only one certificate read from the file
     ‘/usr/local/share/gnupg/gnupg/sks-keyservers.netCA.pem’.  If this
     certificate exists it is used to access the special keyservers
     ‘hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net’ (or ‘hkps://keys.gnupg.net’).

   Please note that ‘gpgsm’ accepts Root CA certificates for its own
purposes only if they are listed in its file ‘trustlist.txt’.  ‘dirmngr’
does not make use of this list -- except FIXME.

   To be able to see diagnostics it is often useful to put at least the
following lines into the configuration file ‘~/gnupg/dirmngr.conf’:

     log-file ~/dirmngr.log
     verbose

   You may want to check the log file to see whether all desired root CA
certificates are correctly loaded.

   To be able to perform OCSP requests you probably want to add the
line:

     allow-ocsp

   To make sure that new options are read or that after the installation
of a new GnuPG versions the right dirmngr version is running, you should
kill an existing dirmngr so that a new instance is started as needed by
the other components:

     gpgconf --kill dirmngr

   Direct interfaction with the dirmngr is possible by using the command

     gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr

   Enter ‘HELP’ at the prompt to see a list of commands and enter ‘HELP’
followed by a command name to get help on that command.


File: gnupg.info,  Node: Dirmngr Signals,  Next: Dirmngr Examples,  Prev: Dirmngr Configuration,  Up: Invoking DIRMNGR

3.4 Use of signals
==================

A running ‘dirmngr’ 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 internally cached CRLs as well as any
     cached certificates.  Then the certificate cache is reinitialized
     as on startup.  Options are re-read from the configuration file.
     Instead of sending this signal it is better to use
          gpgconf --reload dirmngr

‘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.  You may also use
          gpgconf --kill dirmngr
     instead of this signal

‘SIGINT’
     Shuts down the process immediately.

‘SIGUSR1’
     This prints some caching statistics to the log file.


File: gnupg.info,  Node: Dirmngr Examples,  Next: Dirmngr Protocol,  Prev: Dirmngr Signals,  Up: Invoking DIRMNGR

3.5 Examples
============

Here is an example on how to show dirmngr's internal table of OpenPGP
keyserver addresses.  The output is intended for debugging purposes and
not part of a defined API.

       gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'keyserver --hosttable' /bye

   To inhibit the use of a particular host you have noticed in one of
the keyserver pools, you may use

      gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'keyserver --dead pgpkeys.bnd.de' /bye

   The description of the ‘keyserver’ command can be printed using

      gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'help keyserver' /bye


File: gnupg.info,  Node: Dirmngr Protocol,  Prev: Dirmngr Examples,  Up: Invoking DIRMNGR

3.6 Dirmngr's Assuan Protocol
=============================

Assuan is the IPC protocol used to access dirmngr.  This is a
description of the commands implemented by dirmngr.

* Menu:

* Dirmngr LOOKUP::      Look up a certificate via LDAP
* Dirmngr ISVALID::     Validate a certificate using a CRL or OCSP.
* Dirmngr CHECKCRL::    Validate a certificate using a CRL.
* Dirmngr CHECKOCSP::   Validate a certificate using OCSP.
* Dirmngr CACHECERT::   Put a certificate into the internal cache.
* Dirmngr VALIDATE::    Validate a certificate for debugging.


File: gnupg.info,  Node: Dirmngr LOOKUP,  Next: Dirmngr ISVALID,  Up: Dirmngr Protocol

3.6.1 Return the certificate(s) found
-------------------------------------

Lookup certificate.  To allow multiple patterns (which are ORed) quoting
is required: Spaces are to be translated into "+" or into "%20";
obviously this requires that the usual escape quoting rules are applied.
The server responds with:

       S: D <DER encoded certificate>
       S: END
       S: D <second DER encoded certificate>
       S: END
       S: OK

   In this example 2 certificates are returned.  The server may return
any number of certificates; OK will also be returned when no
certificates were found.  The dirmngr might return a status line

       S: S TRUNCATED <n>

   To indicate that the output was truncated to N items due to a
limitation of the server or by an arbitrary set limit.

   The option ‘--url’ may be used if instead of a search pattern a
complete URL to the certificate is known:

       C: LOOKUP --url CN%3DWerner%20Koch,o%3DIntevation%20GmbH,c%3DDE?userCertificate

   If the option ‘--cache-only’ is given, no external lookup is done so
that only certificates from the cache are returned.

   With the option ‘--single’, the first and only the first match will
be returned.  Unless option ‘--cache-only’ is also used, no local lookup
will be done in this case.


File: gnupg.info,  Node: Dirmngr ISVALID,  Next: Dirmngr CHECKCRL,  Prev: Dirmngr LOOKUP,  Up: Dirmngr Protocol

3.6.2 Validate a certificate using a CRL or OCSP
------------------------------------------------

       ISVALID [--only-ocsp] [--force-default-responder] CERTID|CERTFPR

   Check whether the certificate described by the CERTID has been
revoked.  Due to caching, the Dirmngr is able to answer immediately in
most cases.

   The CERTID is a hex encoded string consisting of two parts, delimited
by a single dot.  The first part is the SHA-1 hash of the issuer name
and the second part the serial number.

   Alternatively the certificate's SHA-1 fingerprint CERTFPR may be
given in which case an OCSP request is done before consulting the CRL.
If the option ‘--only-ocsp’ is given, no fallback to a CRL check will be
used.  If the option ‘--force-default-responder’ is given, only the
default OCSP responder will be used and any other methods of obtaining
an OCSP responder URL won't be used.

Common return values are:

‘GPG_ERR_NO_ERROR (0)’
     This is the positive answer: The certificate is not revoked and we
     have an up-to-date revocation list for that certificate.  If OCSP
     was used the responder confirmed that the certificate has not been
     revoked.

‘GPG_ERR_CERT_REVOKED’
     This is the negative answer: The certificate has been revoked.
     Either it is in a CRL and that list is up to date or an OCSP
     responder informed us that it has been revoked.

‘GPG_ERR_NO_CRL_KNOWN’
     No CRL is known for this certificate or the CRL is not valid or out
     of date.

‘GPG_ERR_NO_DATA’
     The OCSP responder returned an "unknown" status.  This means that
     it is not aware of the certificate's status.

‘GPG_ERR_NOT_SUPPORTED’
     This is commonly seen if OCSP support has not been enabled in the
     configuration.

   If DirMngr has not enough information about the given certificate
(which is the case for not yet cached certificates), it will inquire the
missing data:

       S: INQUIRE SENDCERT <CertID>
       C: D <DER encoded certificate>
       C: END

   A client should be aware that DirMngr may ask for more than one
certificate.

   If Dirmngr has a certificate but the signature of the certificate
could not been validated because the root certificate is not known to
dirmngr as trusted, it may ask back to see whether the client trusts
this the root certificate:

       S: INQUIRE ISTRUSTED <CertHexfpr>
       C: D 1
       C: END

   Only this answer will let Dirmngr consider the certificate as valid.


File: gnupg.info,  Node: Dirmngr CHECKCRL,  Next: Dirmngr CHECKOCSP,  Prev: Dirmngr ISVALID,  Up: Dirmngr Protocol

3.6.3 Validate a certificate using a CRL
----------------------------------------

Check whether the certificate with FINGERPRINT (SHA-1 hash of the entire
X.509 certificate blob) is valid or not by consulting the CRL
responsible for this certificate.  If the fingerprint has not been given
or the certificate is not known, the function inquires the certificate
using:

       S: INQUIRE TARGETCERT
       C: D <DER encoded certificate>
       C: END

   Thus the caller is expected to return the certificate for the request
(which should match FINGERPRINT) as a binary blob.  Processing then
takes place without further interaction; in particular dirmngr tries to
locate other required certificate by its own mechanism which includes a
local certificate store as well as a list of trusted root certificates.

The return code is 0 for success; i.e., the certificate has not been
revoked or one of the usual error codes from libgpg-error.


File: gnupg.info,  Node: Dirmngr CHECKOCSP,  Next: Dirmngr CACHECERT,  Prev: Dirmngr CHECKCRL,  Up: Dirmngr Protocol

3.6.4 Validate a certificate using OCSP
---------------------------------------

       CHECKOCSP [--force-default-responder] [FINGERPRINT]

   Check whether the certificate with FINGERPRINT (the SHA-1 hash of the
entire X.509 certificate blob) is valid by consulting the appropriate
OCSP responder.  If the fingerprint has not been given or the
certificate is not known by Dirmngr, the function inquires the
certificate using:

       S: INQUIRE TARGETCERT
       C: D <DER encoded certificate>
       C: END

   Thus the caller is expected to return the certificate for the request
(which should match FINGERPRINT) as a binary blob.  Processing then
takes place without further interaction; in particular dirmngr tries to
locate other required certificates by its own mechanism which includes a
local certificate store as well as a list of trusted root certificates.

   If the option ‘--force-default-responder’ is given, only the default
OCSP responder is used.  This option is the per-command variant of the
global option ‘--ignore-ocsp-service-url’.

The return code is 0 for success; i.e., the certificate has not been
revoked or one of the usual error codes from libgpg-error.


File: gnupg.info,  Node: Dirmngr CACHECERT,  Next: Dirmngr VALIDATE,  Prev: Dirmngr CHECKOCSP,  Up: Dirmngr Protocol

3.6.5 Put a certificate into the internal cache
-----------------------------------------------

Put a certificate into the internal cache.  This command might be useful
if a client knows in advance certificates required for a test and wants
to make sure they get added to the internal cache.  It is also helpful
for debugging.  To get the actual certificate, this command immediately
inquires it using

       S: INQUIRE TARGETCERT
       C: D <DER encoded certificate>
       C: END

   Thus the caller is expected to return the certificate for the request
as a binary blob.

The return code is 0 for success; i.e., the certificate has not been
successfully cached or one of the usual error codes from libgpg-error.


File: gnupg.info,  Node: Dirmngr VALIDATE,  Prev: Dirmngr CACHECERT,  Up: Dirmngr Protocol

3.6.6 Validate a certificate for debugging
------------------------------------------

Validate a certificate using the certificate validation function used
internally by dirmngr.  This command is only useful for debugging.  To
get the actual certificate, this command immediately inquires it using

       S: INQUIRE TARGETCERT
       C: D <DER encoded certificate>
       C: END

   Thus the caller is expected to return the certificate for the request
as a binary blob.


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

4 Invoking GPG
**************

‘gpg’ 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.  ‘gpg’ features complete key management and all the bells and
whistles you would expect from a full OpenPGP implementation.

   There are two main versions of GnuPG: GnuPG 1.x and GnuPG 2.x.  GnuPG
2.x supports modern encryption algorithms and thus should be preferred
over GnuPG 1.x.  You only need to use GnuPG 1.x if your platform doesn't
support GnuPG 2.x, or you need support for some features that GnuPG 2.x
has deprecated for security reasons, e.g., decrypting data created with
PGP-2 keys.

   If you are looking for version 1 of GnuPG, you may find that version
installed under the name ‘gpg1’.

   *Note Option Index::, for an index to ‘gpg’'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

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

Commands are not distinguished from options except for the fact that
only one command is allowed.  Generally speaking, irrelevant options are
silently ignored, and may not be checked for correctness.

   ‘gpg’ may be run with no commands.  In this case it will print a
warning 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, etc.).

   If you run into any problems, please add the option ‘--verbose’ to
the invocation to see more diagnostics.

* 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

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 arbitrarily abbreviate this command
     (though you can use its short form ‘-h’).

‘--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

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

‘--sign’
‘-s’
     Sign a message.  This command may be combined with ‘--encrypt’ (to
     sign and encrypt a message), ‘--symmetric’ (to sign and
     symmetrically encrypt a message), or both ‘--encrypt’ and
     ‘--symmetric’ (to sign and encrypt a message that can be decrypted
     using a secret key or a passphrase).  The signing key is chosen by
     default or can be set explicitly using the ‘--local-user’ and
     ‘--default-key’ options.

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

‘--detach-sign’
‘-b’
     Make a detached signature.

‘--encrypt’
‘-e’
     Encrypt data to one or more public keys.  This command may be
     combined with ‘--sign’ (to sign and encrypt a message),
     ‘--symmetric’ (to encrypt a message that can be decrypted using a
     secret key or a passphrase), or ‘--sign’ and ‘--symmetric’ together
     (for a signed message that can be decrypted using a secret key or a
     passphrase).  ‘--recipient’ and related options specify which
     public keys to use for encryption.

‘--symmetric’
‘-c’
     Encrypt with a symmetric cipher using a passphrase.  The default
     symmetric cipher used is AES-256, but may be chosen with the
     ‘--cipher-algo’ option.  This command 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).
     ‘gpg’ caches the passphrase used for symmetric encryption so that a
     decrypt operation may not require that the user needs to enter the
     passphrase.  The option ‘--no-symkey-cache’ can be used to disable
     this feature.

‘--store’
     Store only (make a simple literal data packet).

‘--add-recipients’
‘--change-recipients’
     These two commands can be used to change the recipients of an
     encrypted file or to add more recipients without fully decrypting
     the file.  This command works by decrypting just the encrypted
     session key and then encrypt the session key to the new recipients
     given with the ‘--recipient’ options.  The output is the entire
     file with the recipients added.  The advantage over a simple
     decrypt and encrypt is that any inner signature is kept intact and
     that gpg does not need to actually decrypt the bulk of the data.
     If ‘--change-recipients’ is used instead of ‘--add-recipients’ all
     existing recipients are removed from the output file so than only
     the newly specified recipients are able to decrypt the new file.
     Note also that symmetric encrypted session keys are removed from
     the output for both variants of the command.

‘--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 that don't begin with an encrypted message.

‘--verify’
     Assume that the first argument is a signed file and verify it
     without generating any output.  With no arguments, the signature
     packet is read from STDIN. If only one argument is given, the
     specified file is expected to include a complete signature.

     With more than one argument, the first argument should specify a
     file with a detached signature and the remaining files should
     contain the signed data.  To read the signed data from STDIN, use
     ‘-’ as the second filename.  For security reasons, a detached
     signature will not read the signed material from STDIN if not
     explicitly specified.

     Note: If the option ‘--batch’ is not used, ‘gpg’ may assume that a
     single argument is a file with a detached signature, and it will
     try to find a matching data file by stripping certain suffixes.
     Using this historical feature to verify a detached signature is
     strongly discouraged; you should always specify the data file
     explicitly.

     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 the header lines directly
     following 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.

     Note: With option ‘--batch’ he verification of signatures stops at
     the first bad signature.  This is a safe default for unattended
     processing but sometimes a status for all signatures is needed.  To
     override this early bailout use the option ‘--proc-all-sigs’.

     Note: To check whether a file was signed by a certain key the
     option ‘--assert-signer’ can be used.  As an alternative the ‘gpgv’
     tool can be used.  ‘gpgv’ is designed to compare signed data
     against a list of trusted keys and returns with success only for a
     good signature.  It has its own manual page.

‘--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 the specified keys.  If no keys are specified, then all keys
     from the configured public keyrings are listed.

     Never use the output of this command in scripts or other programs.
     The output is intended only for humans and its format is likely to
     change.  The ‘--with-colons’ option emits the output in a stable,
     machine-parseable format, which is intended for use by scripts and
     other programs.

‘--list-secret-keys’
‘-K’
     List the specified secret keys.  If no keys are specified, then all
     known secret keys are listed.  A ‘#’ after the initial tags ‘sec’
     or ‘ssb’ means that the secret key or subkey is currently not
     usable.  We also say that this key has been taken offline (for
     example, a primary key can be taken offline by exporting the key
     using the command ‘--export-secret-subkeys’).  A ‘>’ after these
     tags indicate that the key is stored on a smartcard.  See also
     ‘--list-keys’.

‘--check-signatures’
‘--check-sigs’
     Same as ‘--list-keys’, but the key signatures are verified and
     listed too.  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 below.
     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).  Signatures where the public key is not available are
     not listed; to see their keyids the command ‘--list-sigs’ can be
     used.

     For each signature listed, there are several flags in between the
     signature status flag and keyid.  These flags give additional
     information about each key 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").

‘--locate-keys’
‘--locate-external-keys’
     Locate the keys given as arguments.  This command basically uses
     the same algorithm as used when locating keys for encryption and
     may thus be used to see what keys ‘gpg’ might use.  In particular
     external methods as defined by ‘--auto-key-locate’ are used to
     locate a key if the arguments comain valid mail addresses.  Only
     public keys are listed.

     The variant ‘--locate-external-keys’ does not consider a locally
     existing key and can thus be used to force the refresh of a key via
     the defined external methods.  If a fingerprint is given and and
     the methods defined by ‘--auto-key-locate’ define LDAP servers, the
     key is fetched from these resources; defined non-LDAP keyservers
     are skipped.

‘--show-keys’
     This commands takes OpenPGP keys as input and prints information
     about them in the same way the command ‘--list-keys’ does for
     locally stored key.  In addition the list options
     ‘show-unusable-uids’, ‘show-unusable-subkeys’, ‘show-notations’ and
     ‘show-policy-urls’ are also enabled.  As usual for automated
     processing, this command should be combined with the option
     ‘--with-colons’.

‘--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 ‘--check-signatures’.  If this command is given
     twice, the fingerprints of all secondary keys are listed too.  This
     command also forces pretty printing of fingerprints if the keyid
     format has been set to "none".

‘--list-packets’
     List only the sequence of packets.  This command is only useful for
     debugging.  When used with option ‘--verbose’ the actual MPI values
     are dumped and not only their lengths.  Note that the output of
     this command may change with new releases.

‘--edit-card’
‘--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 .
     Please note that the command "openpgp" can be used to switch to the
     OpenPGP application of cards which by default are presenting
     another application (e.g., PIV).

‘--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
     ‘--edit-card’ command.

‘--delete-keys 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.  If the
     exclamation mark syntax is used with the fingerprint of a subkey
     only that subkey is deleted; if the exclamation mark is used with
     the fingerprint of the primary key the entire public key is
     deleted.

‘--delete-secret-keys NAME’
     Remove key from the secret keyring.  In batch mode the key must be
     specified by fingerprint.  The option ‘--yes’ can be used to advise
     gpg-agent not to request a confirmation.  This extra pre-caution is
     done because ‘gpg’ can't be sure that the secret key (as controlled
     by gpg-agent) is only used for the given OpenPGP public key.  If
     the exclamation mark syntax is used with the fingerprint of a
     subkey only the secret part of that subkey is deleted; if the
     exclamation mark is used with the fingerprint of the primary key
     only the secret part of the primary key is deleted.

‘--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.  The option ‘--yes’ can be used to advise gpg-agent
     not to request a confirmation.

‘--export’
     Either export all keys from all keyrings (default keyring 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 KEYIDS’
     Similar to ‘--export’ but sends the keys to a keyserver.
     Fingerprints may be used instead of key IDs.  Don't send your
     complete keyring to a keyserver -- select only those keys which are
     new or changed by you.  If no KEYIDS are given, ‘gpg’ does nothing.

     Take care: Keyservers are by design write only systems and thus it
     is not possible to ever delete keys once they have been send to a
     keyserver.

‘--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 for easy printing of the key for paper
     backup; however the external tool ‘paperkey’ does a better job of
     creating backups on paper.  Note that exporting a secret key can be
     a security risk if the exported keys are sent 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 in generating
     a full key with an additional signing subkey on a dedicated
     machine.  This command then exports the key without the primary key
     to the main machine.

     GnuPG may ask you to enter the passphrase for the key.  This is
     required, because the internal protection method of the secret key
     is different from the one specified by the OpenPGP protocol.

     To support Kyber keys, which are implemented as a composite key
     along with an ECC key (aka PQ/T hybrid key), a GNU specific
     protocol extension is used.  This allows the use of a smartcard for
     just one part of such a composite key.  A re-encryption to an
     internal format is not needed as the keys restored in the very same
     way as GnuPG stores them.  This extension may also be forced for
     all key types using the option ‘--export-options=mode1003’.

‘--export-ssh-key’
     This command is used to export a key in the OpenSSH public key
     format.  It requires the specification of one key by the usual
     means and exports the latest valid subkey which has an
     authentication capability to STDOUT or to the file given with
     option ‘--output’.  That output can directly be added to ssh's
     ‘authorized_key’ file.

     By specifying the key to export using a key ID or a fingerprint
     suffixed with an exclamation mark (!), a specific subkey or the
     primary key can be exported.  This does not even require that the
     key has the authentication capability flag set.

‘--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.

‘--receive-keys KEYIDS’
‘--recv-keys KEYIDS’
     Import the keys with the given KEYIDS from a 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.

‘--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.  Note that keyservers search for NAMES in a different
     and simpler way than gpg does.  The best choice is to use a mail
     address.  Due to data privacy reasons keyservers may even not even
     allow searching by user id or mail address and thus may only return
     results when being used with the ‘--recv-key’ command to search by
     key fingerprint or keyid.

‘--fetch-keys URIS’
     Retrieve keys located at the specified URIS.  Note that different
     installations of GnuPG may support different protocols (HTTP, FTP,
     LDAP, etc.).  When using HTTPS the system provided root
     certificates are used by this command.

‘--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:
            gpg --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
            gpg --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 "*" for ALGO) digests
     for all available algorithms are printed.

‘--gen-random 0|1|2|16|30 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.  The special level 16 uses a quality level of 1 and
     outputs an endless stream of hex-encoded octets.  The special level
     30 outputs random as 30 zBase-32 characters.

‘--gen-prime MODE BITS’
     Use the source, Luke :-).  The output format is subject to change
     with any release.

‘--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.  The ‘--dearmor’ command can also be used to dearmor PEM
     armors.

‘--unwrap’
     This option modifies the command ‘--decrypt’ to output the original
     message with the encryption layer removed.  Thus the output will be
     an OpenPGP data structure which often means a signed OpenPGP
     message.  Note that this option may or may not remove a compression
     layer which is often found beneath the encryption layer.

‘--tofu-policy {auto|good|unknown|bad|ask} KEYS’
     Set the TOFU policy for all the bindings associated with the
     specified KEYS.  For more information about the meaning of the
     policies, *note trust-model-tofu::.  The KEYS may be specified
     either by their fingerprint (preferred) or their keyid.


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

4.1.3 How to manage your keys
-----------------------------

This section explains the main commands for key management.

‘--quick-generate-key USER-ID [ALGO [USAGE [EXPIRE]]]’
‘--quick-gen-key’
     This is a simple command to generate a standard key with one user
     id.  In contrast to ‘--generate-key’ the key is generated directly
     without the need to answer a bunch of prompts.  Unless the option
     ‘--yes’ is given, the key creation will be canceled if the given
     user id already exists in the keyring.

     If invoked directly on the console without any special options an
     answer to a "Continue?"  style confirmation prompt is required.  In
     case the user id already exists in the keyring a second prompt to
     force the creation of the key will show up.

     If ALGO or USAGE are given, only the primary key is created and no
     prompts are shown.  To specify an expiration date but still create
     a primary and a subkey use "default", "future-default", or "pqc"
     for ALGO and "default" for USAGE.  For a description of these
     optional arguments see the command ‘--quick-add-key’; the value
     "pqc" create a key with a quantum-resistant encryption encryption
     subkey.  The USAGE accepts also the value "cert" which can be used
     to create a certification only primary key; the default is to a
     create certification and signing key.

     The EXPIRE argument can be used to specify an expiration date for
     the key.  Several formats are supported; commonly the ISO formats
     "YYYY-MM-DD" or "YYYYMMDDThhmmss" are used.  To make the key expire
     in N seconds, N days, N weeks, N months, or N years use
     "seconds=N", "Nd", "Nw", "Nm", or "Ny" respectively.  Not
     specifying a value, or using "-" results in a key expiring in a
     reasonable default interval.  The values "never", "none" can be
     used for no expiration date.

     If this command is used with ‘--batch’, ‘--pinentry-mode’ has been
     set to ‘loopback’, and one of the passphrase options
     (‘--passphrase’, ‘--passphrase-fd’, or ‘--passphrase-file’) is
     used, the supplied passphrase is used for the new key and the agent
     does not ask for it.  To create a key without any protection
     ‘--passphrase ''’ may be used.

     To create an OpenPGP key from the keys available on the currently
     inserted smartcard, the special string "card" can be used for ALGO.
     If the card features an encryption and a signing key, gpg will
     figure them out and creates an OpenPGP key consisting of the usual
     primary key and one subkey.  This works only with certain
     smartcards.  Note that the interactive ‘--full-gen-key’ command
     allows one to do the same but with greater flexibility in the
     selection of the smartcard keys.

     Note that it is possible to create a primary key and a subkey using
     non-default algorithms by using "default" and changing the default
     parameters using the option ‘--default-new-key-algo’.

‘--quick-set-expire FPR EXPIRE [*|SUBFPRS]’
     With two arguments given, directly set the expiration time of the
     primary key identified by FPR to EXPIRE.  To remove the expiration
     time ‘0’ can be used.  With three arguments and the third given as
     an asterisk, the expiration time of all non-revoked and not yet
     expired subkeys are set to EXPIRE.  With more than two arguments
     and a list of fingerprints given for SUBFPRS, all non-revoked
     subkeys matching these fingerprints are set to EXPIRE.

‘--quick-add-key FPR [ALGO [USAGE [EXPIRE]]]’
     Directly add a subkey to the key identified by the fingerprint FPR.
     Without the optional arguments an encryption subkey is added.  If
     any of the arguments are given a more specific subkey is added.

     ALGO may be any of the supported algorithms or curve names given in
     the format as used by key listings.  To use the default algorithm
     the string "default" or "-" can be used.  Supported algorithms are
     "rsa", "dsa", "elg", "ed25519", "cv25519", and other ECC curves.
     For example the string "rsa" adds an RSA key with the default key
     length; a string "rsa4096" requests that the key length is 4096
     bits.  The string "future-default" is an alias for the algorithm
     which will likely be used as default algorithm in future versions
     of gpg.  To list the supported ECC curves the command ‘gpg
     --with-colons --list-config curve’ can be used.

     Depending on the given ALGO the subkey may either be an encryption
     subkey or a signing subkey.  If an algorithm is capable of signing
     and encryption and such a subkey is desired, a USAGE string must be
     given.  This string is either "default" or "-" to keep the default
     or a comma delimited list (or space delimited list) of keywords:
     "sign" for a signing subkey, "auth" for an authentication subkey,
     and "encr" for an encryption subkey ("encrypt" can be used as alias
     for "encr").  The valid combinations depend on the algorithm.

     The EXPIRE argument can be used to specify an expiration date for
     the key.  Several formats are supported; commonly the ISO formats
     "YYYY-MM-DD" or "YYYYMMDDThhmmss" are used.  To make the key expire
     in N seconds, N days, N weeks, N months, or N years use
     "seconds=N", "Nd", "Nw", "Nm", or "Ny" respectively.  Not
     specifying a value, or using "-" results in a key expiring in a
     reasonable default interval.  The values "never", "none" can be
     used for no expiration date.

‘--quick-add-adsk FPR ADSKFPR’
     Directly add an Additional Decryption Subkey to the key identified
     by the fingerprint FPR.  ADSKFPR is the fingerprint of another
     key's encryption subkey.  A subkey is commonly used here because by
     default a primary key has no encryption capability.  Use the option
     ‘--with-subkey-fingerprint’ with a list command to display the
     subkey fingerprints.  If the string "default" is used for ADSKFPR
     all missing ADSKs configured with ‘--default-new-key-adsk’ are
     added.

‘--generate-key’
‘--gen-key’
     Generate a new key pair using the current default parameters.  This
     is the standard command to create a new key.  In addition to the
     key a revocation certificate is created and stored in the
     ‘openpgp-revocs.d’ directory below the GnuPG home directory.

‘--full-generate-key’
‘--full-gen-key’
     Generate a new key pair with dialogs for all options.  This is an
     extended version of ‘--generate-key’.

     There is also a feature which allows you to create keys in batch
     mode.  See the manual section "Unattended key generation" on how to
     use this.

‘--generate-revocation NAME’
‘--gen-revoke NAME’
     Generate a revocation certificate for the complete key.  To only
     revoke a subkey or a key signature, use the ‘--edit’ command.

     This command merely creates the revocation certificate so that it
     can be used to revoke the key if that is ever needed.  To actually
     revoke a key the created revocation certificate needs to be merged
     with the key to revoke.  This is done by importing the revocation
     certificate using the ‘--import’ command.  Then the revoked key
     needs to be published, which is best done by sending the key to a
     keyserver (command ‘--send-key’) and by exporting (‘--export’) it
     to a file which is then send to frequent communication partners.

‘--generate-designated-revocation NAME’
‘--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 or key ID 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 useful in
          distinct communities or groups to implement the concept of a
          Trusted Introducer.  For more information please read the
          sections "Trust Signature" and "Regular Expression" in
          RFC-4880.

     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.

     If the option ‘--only-sign-text-ids’ is specified, then any
     non-text based user ids (e.g., photo IDs) will not be selected for
     signing.

     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.  With the extra
          option ‘selfsig’ only self-signatures are shown.

     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
          ‘gpg --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. Note
          that an unattended version of this command is available as
          ‘--quick-update-pref’.

          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.

     keytotpm
          Transfer the selected secret subkey (or the primary key if no
          subkey has been selected) to TPM form.  The secret key in the
          keyring will be replaced by the TPM representation of that
          key, which can only be read by the particular TPM that created
          it (so the keyfile now becomes locked to the laptop containing
          the TPM). Only certain key types may be transferred to the TPM
          (all TPM 2.0 systems are mandated to have the rsa2048 and
          nistp256 algorithms but newer TPMs may have more).  Note that
          the key itself is not transferred into the TPM, merely
          encrypted by the TPM in-place, so if the keyfile is deleted,
          the key will be lost.  Once transferred to TPM representation,
          the key file can never be converted back to non-TPM form and
          the key will die when the TPM does, so you should first have a
          backup on secure offline storage of the actual secret key file
          before conversion.  It is essential to use the physical system
          TPM that you have rw permission on the TPM resource manager
          device (/dev/tpmrm0).  Usually this means you must be a member
          of the tss group.

     delkey
          Remove a subkey (secondary 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’.
          Also note that this only deletes the public part of a key.

     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).

     addadsk
          Add an Additional Decryption Subkey.  The user is asked to
          enter the fingerprint of another encryption subkey.  Note that
          the exact fingerprint of another key's encryption subkey needs
          to be entered.  This is because commonly the primary key has
          no encryption capability.  Use the option
          ‘--with-subkey-fingerprint’ with a list command to display the
          subkey fingerprints.

     passwd
          Change the passphrase of the secret key.

     toggle
          This is dummy command which exists only for backward
          compatibility.

     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.

     change-usage
          Change the usage flags (capabilities) of the primary key or of
          subkeys.  These usage flags (e.g., Certify, Sign,
          Authenticate, Encrypt) are set during key creation.  Sometimes
          it is useful to have the opportunity to change them (for
          example to add Authenticate) after they have been created.
          Please take care when doing this; the allowed usage flags
          depend on the key algorithm.

     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 command is only useful to
          bring older keys up to date.

     save
          Save all changes to the keyring and quit.

     quit
          Quit the program without updating the keyring.

     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: "trust" is the assigned owner trust
     and "validity" is the calculated validity of the key.  Validity
     values are also displayed for all user IDs.  For possible values of
     trust, *note trust-values::.

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

‘--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’.

‘--quick-sign-key FPR [NAMES]’
‘--quick-lsign-key FPR [NAMES]’
‘--quick-tsign-key FPR TRUSTSPEC [NAMES]’
     Directly sign a key from the passphrase without any further user
     interaction.  The FPR must be the verified primary fingerprint of a
     key in the local keyring.  If no NAMES are given, all useful user
     ids are signed; with given [NAMES] only useful user ids matching
     one of these names are signed.  By default, or if a name is
     prefixed with a '*', a case insensitive substring match is used.
     If a name is prefixed with a '=' a case sensitive exact match is
     done.

     The command ‘--quick-lsign-key’ marks the signatures as
     non-exportable.  If such a non-exportable signature already exists
     the ‘--quick-sign-key’ turns it into a exportable signature.  If
     you need to update an existing signature, for example to add or
     change notation data, you need to use the option
     ‘--force-sign-key’.

     The command ‘--quick-tsign-key’ creates a trust signature using the
     information from the TRUSTSPEC string.  The TRUSTSPEC uses the
     format [T=]DEPT,VALUE[,DOMAIN].  DEPTH is the length of the trust
     chain in the range 0 (identical to a standard key signature) to 255
     (ridiculous long trust chain); the most common lengths for trust
     signatures are 1 and 2.  VALUE is either "f" or "full" which are
     mapped to a value of 120 or "m" or "marginal" which are mapped to a
     value of 60.  The allowed range is 0 to 255 but it is highly
     suggested to use only 60 or 120.  DOMAIN is optional and a plain
     domain name like "example.org".

     This command uses reasonable defaults and thus does not provide the
     full flexibility of the "sign" subcommand from ‘--edit-key’.  Its
     intended use is to help unattended key signing by utilizing a list
     of verified fingerprints.

‘--quick-add-uid USER-ID NEW-USER-ID’
     This command adds a new user id to an existing key.  In contrast to
     the interactive sub-command ‘adduid’ of ‘--edit-key’ the
     NEW-USER-ID is added verbatim with only leading and trailing white
     space removed, it is expected to be UTF-8 encoded, and no checks on
     its form are applied.

‘--quick-revoke-uid USER-ID USER-ID-TO-REVOKE’
     This command revokes a user ID on an existing key.  It cannot be
     used to revoke the last user ID on key (some non-revoked user ID
     must remain), with revocation reason "User ID is no longer valid".
     If you want to specify a different revocation reason, or to supply
     supplementary revocation text, you should use the interactive
     sub-command ‘revuid’ of ‘--edit-key’.

‘--quick-revoke-sig FPR SIGNING-FPR [NAMES]’
     This command revokes the key signatures made by SIGNING-FPR from
     the key specified by the fingerprint FPR.  With NAMES given only
     the signatures on user ids of the key matching any of the given
     names are affected (see ‘--quick-sign-key’).  If a revocation
     already exists a notice is printed instead of creating a new
     revocation; no error is returned in this case.  Note that key
     signature revocations may be superseded by a newer key signature
     and in turn again revoked.

‘--quick-set-primary-uid USER-ID PRIMARY-USER-ID’
     This command sets or updates the primary user ID flag on an
     existing key.  USER-ID specifies the key and PRIMARY-USER-ID the
     user ID which shall be flagged as the primary user ID. The primary
     user ID flag is removed from all other user ids and the timestamp
     of all affected self-signatures is set one second ahead.

‘--quick-update-pref USER-ID’
     This command updates the preference list of the key to the current
     default value (either built-in or set via
     ‘--default-preference-list’).  This is the unattended version of
     using "setpref" in the ‘--key-edit’ menu without giving a list.
     Note that you can show the preferences in a key listing by using
     ‘--list-options show-pref’ or ‘--list-options show-pref-verbose’.
     You should also re-distribute updated keys to your peers.

‘--quick-set-ownertrust USER-ID VALUE’
     This command sets the ownertrust of a key and can also be used to
     set the disable flag of a key.  This is the unattended version of
     using "trust", "disable", or "enable" in the ‘--key-edit’ menu.

‘--change-passphrase USER-ID’
‘--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.  When using together
     with the option ‘--dry-run’ this will not actually change the
     passphrase but check that the current passphrase is correct.


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

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

‘gpg’ 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 doesn'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

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

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

‘--default-key NAME’
     Use NAME as the default key to sign with.  It is suggested to use a
     fingerprint or at least a long keyID for NAME.  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.
     This option may be given multiple times.  In this case, the last
     key for which a secret key is available is used.  If there is no
     secret key available for any of the specified values, GnuPG will
     not emit an error message but continue as if this option wasn't
     given.

‘--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 and
     it is suggested to use a fingerprint for NAME.

‘--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’.  Should
     not be used in an option file.

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

‘--no-verbose’
     Reset verbose level to 0.  Should not be used in an option file.

‘-q, --quiet’
     Try to be as quiet as possible.  Should not be used in an option
     file.

‘--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’.

     It is highly recommended to use this option along with the options
     ‘--status-fd’ and ‘--with-colons’ for any unattended use of ‘gpg’.
     Should not be used in an option file.

‘--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.  Should not be used in an option
     file.

‘--no’
     Assume "no" on most questions.  Should not be used in an option
     file.

‘--proc-all-sigs’
     This option overrides the behaviour of the ‘--batch’ option to stop
     signature verification at the first bad signatures.

‘--list-filter {select=EXPR}’
     A list filter can be used to output only certain keys during key
     listing commands.  For the available property names, see the
     description of ‘--import-filter’.

‘--list-options PARAMETERS’
     This is a space or comma delimited string that gives options used
     when listing keys and signatures (that is, ‘--list-keys’,
     ‘--check-signatures’, ‘--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’, ‘--check-signatures’,
          ‘--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-usage
          Show usage information for keys and subkeys in the standard
          key listing.  This is a list of letters indicating the allowed
          usage for a key (‘E’=encryption, ‘S’=signing,
          ‘C’=certification, ‘A’=authentication).  Defaults to yes.

     show-ownertrust
          Show the ownertrust value for keys also in the standard key
          listing.  Defaults to no.

     show-trustsig
          Show information about trust signatures also in a non-colon
          mode.  The information is printed in brackets after the
          signer's user ID in the format T=DEPT,VALUE[,[R]"STRING"].
          With the "R" prefix STRING gives the raw regular expression
          escaped in C-style; without the prefix the domain name is
          printed verbatim.  Defaults to no.

     show-policy-urls
          Show policy URLs in the ‘--check-signatures’ listings.
          Defaults to no.

     show-notations
     show-std-notations
     show-user-notations
     show-hidden-notations
          Show all, IETF standard, or user-defined signature notations
          in the ‘--check-sigs’ listings.  Hidden notations are those
          which are automatically inserted by an implementation and not
          worthy to mention.  Defaults to no.

     show-x509-notations
          Print X.509 certificates embedded in key signatures as PEM
          data.  This is intended for debugging and the output format
          may change without notice.

     store-x509-notations
          Store X.509 certificates embedded in key signatures as PEM
          data files.  The filename consists the 4 byte key ID of the
          certificate, a dash, the fingerprint of the key or subkey, and
          the suffix ".pem".

     show-keyserver-urls
          Show any preferred keyserver URL in the ‘--check-signatures’
          listings.  Defaults to no.

     show-uid-validity
          Display the calculated validity of user IDs during key
          listings.  Defaults to yes.

     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-unusable-sigs
          Show key signature made using weak or unsupported algorithms.

     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
          ‘--check-signatures’ 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 ‘--check-signatures’.

     show-only-fpr-mbox
          For each user-id which has a valid mail address print only the
          fingerprint followed by the mail address.

     sort-sigs
          With ‘--list-sigs’ and ‘--check-sigs’ sort the signatures by
          keyID and creation time to make it easier to view the history
          of these signatures.  The self-signature is also listed before
          other signatures.  Defaults to yes.  This option has no effect
          in ‘-with-colons’ mode.

‘--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
          yes.

     show-notations
     show-std-notations
     show-user-notations
     show-hidden-notations
          Show all, IETF standard, or user-defined signature notations
          in the signature being verified.  Hidden notations are those
          which are automatically inserted by an implementation and not
          worthy to mention.  Defaults to IETF standard.

     show-keyserver-urls
          Show any preferred keyserver URL in the signature being
          verified.  Defaults to yes.

     show-uid-validity
          Display the calculated validity of the user IDs on the key
          that issued the signature.  Defaults to yes.

     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.

‘--enable-large-rsa’
‘--disable-large-rsa’
     Enable the creation of RSA secret keys as large as 8192 bit.  Note:
     8192 bit is more than is generally recommended.  These large keys
     don't significantly improve security, but they are more expensive
     to use, and their signatures and certifications are larger.  This
     option is only available if the binary was build with large-secmem
     support.

‘--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.

     On Unix the default viewer is ‘xloadimage -fork -quiet -title
     'KeyID 0x%k' STDIN’ with a fallback to ‘display -title 'KeyID 0x%k'
     %i’ and finally to ‘xdg-open %i’.  On Windows ‘!ShellExecute 400
     %i’ is used; here the command is a meta command to use that API
     call followed by a wait time in milliseconds which is used to give
     the viewer time to read the temporary image file before gpg deletes
     it again.  Note that if your image viewer program is not secure,
     then executing it from gpg does not make it secure.

‘--exec-path STRING’
     Sets a list of directories to search for photo viewers If not
     provided photo viewers use the ‘PATH’ environment variable.

‘--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" unless ‘--homedir’ or $GNUPGHOME
     is 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’.

     If the option ‘--no-keyring’ has been used no keyrings will be used
     at all.

     Note that if the option ‘use-keyboxd’ is enabled in ‘common.conf’,
     no keyrings are used at all and keys are all maintained by the
     keyboxd process in its own database.

‘--primary-keyring FILE’
     This is a variant of ‘--keyring’ and designates FILE as the primary
     public keyring.  This means that newly imported keys (via
     ‘--import’ or keyserver ‘--recv-from’) will go to this keyring.

‘--secret-keyring FILE’
     This is an obsolete option and ignored.  All secret keys are stored
     in the ‘private-keys-v1.d’ directory below the GnuPG home
     directory.

‘--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).

‘--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 Windows systems) by means of the Registry entry
     HKCU\SOFTWARE\GNU\GNUPG:HOMEDIR.

     On Windows systems it is possible to install GnuPG as a portable
     application.  In this case only this command line option is
     considered, all other ways to set a home directory are ignored.

‘--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.  This option should not be used on
     Windows.  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 (RFC-1489).

     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 UTF-8 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.  This option should not be used in an option
     file.

     This option has no effect on Windows.  There the internal used
     UTF-8 encoding is translated for console input and output.  The
     command line arguments are expected as Unicode and translated to
     UTF-8.  Thus when calling this program from another, make sure to
     use the Unicode version of CreateProcess.

‘--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’
‘--no-compress’
     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.

     Option ‘-z’ sets both.  A value of 0 for N disables compression.  A
     value of -1 forces compression using the default level.  Option
     ‘--no-compress’ is identical to ‘-z0’.

     Except for the ‘--store’ command compression is always used unless
     ‘gpg’ detects that the input is already compressed.  To inhibit the
     use of compression use ‘-z0’ or ‘--no-compress’; to force
     compression use ‘-z-1’ or option ‘z’ with another compression level
     than the default as indicated by -1.  Note that this overriding of
     the default deection works only with ‘z’ and not with the long
     variant of this option.

‘--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 OR FINGERPRINT’
     Assume that the specified key (which should be given as
     fingerprint) 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.  If the given
     key is not locally available but an LDAP keyserver is configured
     the missing key is imported from that server.  The value "none" is
     explicitly allowed to distinguish between the use of any
     trusted-key option and no use of this option at all (e.g.  due to
     the ‘--no-options’ option).

‘--add-desig-revoker [sensitive:]FINGERPRINT’
     Add the key specified by FINGERPRINT as a designated revoker to
     newly created keys.  If the fingerprint is prefixed with the
     keyword "sensitive:" that info is normally not exported with the
     key.  This option may be given several times to add more than one
     designated revoker.  If the keyword "clear" is used instead of a
     fingerprint, all previously fiven fingerprints are discarded.
     Designated revokers are marked on the key as non-revocable.  Note
     that a designated revoker specified using a parameter file will
     also be added to the key.

‘--default-new-key-adsk FINGERPRINT’
     Add the subkey specified by FINGERPRINT as an Additional Decryption
     Subkey (ADSK) to newly created keys.  This option may be given
     several time to add more than one ADSK. It is also possible to give
     several fingerprints delimited by space or comma as value to this
     option.  If the keyword "clear" is used instead of a fingerprint,
     all previously specified fingerprints are discarded (useful to
     override options given in a config file).  The fingerprint is
     expected to specify a subkey and it does not need an exclamation
     mark as suffix; it must be given in cmpact format (40 or 64
     hex-digits without any spaces).

‘--trust-model {pgp|classic|tofu|tofu+pgp|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 introduced by PGP 2.

     tofu
          TOFU stands for Trust On First Use.  In this experimental
          trust model, the first time a key is seen, it is memorized.
          If later another key with a user id with the same email
          address is seen, both keys are marked as suspect.  In that
          case, the next time either is used, a warning is displayed
          describing the conflict, why it might have occurred (either
          the user generated a new key and failed to cross sign the old
          and new keys, the key is forgery, or a man-in-the-middle
          attack is being attempted), and the user is prompted to
          manually confirm the validity of the key in question.

          Because a potential attacker is able to control the email
          address and thereby circumvent the conflict detection
          algorithm by using an email address that is similar in
          appearance to a trusted email address, whenever a message is
          verified, statistics about the number of messages signed with
          the key are shown.  In this way, a user can easily identify
          attacks using fake keys for regular correspondents.

          When compared with the Web of Trust, TOFU offers significantly
          weaker security guarantees.  In particular, TOFU only helps
          ensure consistency (that is, that the binding between a key
          and email address doesn't change).  A major advantage of TOFU
          is that it requires little maintenance to use correctly.  To
          use the web of trust properly, you need to actively sign keys
          and mark users as trusted introducers.  This is a
          time-consuming process and anecdotal evidence suggests that
          even security-conscious users rarely take the time to do this
          thoroughly and instead rely on an ad-hoc TOFU process.

          In the TOFU model, policies are associated with bindings
          between keys and email addresses (which are extracted from
          user ids and normalized).  There are five policies, which can
          be set manually using the ‘--tofu-policy’ option.  The default
          policy can be set using the ‘--tofu-default-policy’ option.

          The TOFU policies are: ‘auto’, ‘good’, ‘unknown’, ‘bad’ and
          ‘ask’.  The ‘auto’ policy is used by default (unless
          overridden by ‘--tofu-default-policy’) and marks a binding as
          marginally trusted.  The ‘good’, ‘unknown’ and ‘bad’ policies
          mark a binding as fully trusted, as having unknown trust or as
          having trust never, respectively.  The ‘unknown’ policy is
          useful for just using TOFU to detect conflicts, but to never
          assign positive trust to a binding.  The final policy, ‘ask’
          prompts the user to indicate the binding's trust.  If batch
          mode is enabled (or input is inappropriate in the context),
          then the user is not prompted and the ‘undefined’ trust level
          is returned.

     tofu+pgp
          This experimental trust model combines TOFU with the Web of
          Trust.  This is done by computing the trust level for each
          model and then taking the maximum trust level where the trust
          levels are ordered as follows: ‘unknown < undefined < marginal
          < fully < ultimate < expired < never’.

          By setting ‘--tofu-default-policy=unknown’, this model can be
          used to implement the web of trust with TOFU's conflict
          detection algorithm, but without its assignment of positive
          trust values, which some security-conscious users don't like.

     direct
          Key validity is set directly by the user and not calculated
          via the Web of Trust.  This model is solely based on the key
          and does not distinguish user IDs.  Note that when changing to
          another trust model the trust values assigned to a key are
          transformed into ownertrust values, which also indicate how
          you trust the owner of the key to sign other keys.

     always
          Skip key validation and assume that used keys are always fully
          valid.  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.  Note that a tofu trust model is not
          considered here and must be enabled explicitly.

‘--always-trust’
     Identical to ‘--trust-model always’.

‘--assert-signer FPR_OR_FILE’
     This option checks whether at least one valid signature on a file
     has been made with the specified key.  The key is either specified
     as a fingerprint or a file listing fingerprints.  The fingerprint
     must be given or listed in compact format (no colons or spaces in
     between).  This option can be given multiple times and each
     fingerprint is checked against the signing key as well as the
     corresponding primary key.  If FPR_OR_FILE specifies a file, empty
     lines are ignored as well as all lines starting with a hash sign.
     With this option gpg is guaranteed to return with an exit code of 0
     if and only if a signature has been encountered, is valid, and the
     key matches one of the fingerprints given by this option.

‘--assert-pubkey-algo ALGOLIST’
     During data signature verification this options checks whether the
     used public key algorithm matches the algorithms given by ALGOLIST.
     This option can be given multiple times to concatenate more
     algorithms to the list; the delimiter of the list are either commas
     or spaces.

     The algorithm names given in the list may either be verbatim names
     like "ed25519" with an optional leading single equal sign, or being
     prefixed with ">", ">=", "<=", or "<".  That prefix operator is
     applied to the number part of the algorithm name; for example 2048
     in "rsa2048" or 384 in "brainpoolP384r1".  If the the leading
     non-digits in the name matches, the prefix operator is used to
     compare the number part, a trailing suffix is ignored in this case.
     For example an algorithm list ">rsa3000, >=brainpool384r1,
     =ed25519" allows RSA signatures with more that 3000 bits, Brainpool
     curves 384 and 512, and the ed25519 algorithm.

     With this option gpg (and also gpgv) is guaranteed to return with
     an exit code of 0 if and only if all valid signatures on data are
     made using a matching algorithm from the given list.

‘--auto-key-locate MECHANISMS’
‘--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
     mechanisms listed below, in the order they are to be tried.
     Instead of listing the mechanisms as comma delimited arguments, the
     option may also be given several times to add more mechanism.  The
     option ‘--no-auto-key-locate’ or the mechanism "clear" resets the
     list.  The default is "local,wkd".

     cert
          Locate a key using DNS CERT, as specified in RFC-4398.

     dane
          Locate a key using DANE, as specified in
          draft-ietf-dane-openpgpkey-05.txt.

     wkd
          Locate a key using the Web Key Directory protocol.

     ldap
          Locate the key using the configured LDAP servers.  This method
          is similar to the ‘keyserver’ mechanism but always uses only
          LDAP servers.

     ntds
          Locate the key using the Active Directory (Windows only).
          This method also allows one to search by fingerprint using the
          command ‘--locate-external-key’.  Note that this mechanism is
          actually a shortcut for the mechanism ‘ldap’ using only
          "ldap:///" as the keyserver.

     keyserver
          Locate a key using a keyserver.  This method also allows one
          to search by fingerprint using the command
          ‘--locate-external-key’ if any of the configured keyservers is
          an LDAP server.

     keyserver-URL
          In addition, a keyserver URL as used in the ‘dirmngr’
          configuration may be used here to query that particular
          keyserver.  This method also allows one to search by
          fingerprint using the command ‘--locate-external-key’ if the
          URL specifies an LDAP server.

     local
          Locate the key using the local keyrings.  This mechanism
          allows the user 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.  Note that a ‘nodefault’ in
          MECHANISMS will also be cleared unless it is given after the
          ‘clear’.

‘--auto-key-import’
‘--no-auto-key-import’
     This is an offline mechanism to get a missing key for signature
     verification and for later encryption to this key.  If this option
     is enabled and a signature includes an embedded key, that key is
     used to verify the signature and on verification success the key is
     imported.  The default is ‘--no-auto-key-import’.

     On the sender (signing) site the option ‘--include-key-block’ needs
     to be used to put the public part of the signing key as “Key Block
     subpacket” into the signature.

‘--auto-key-retrieve’
‘--no-auto-key-retrieve’
     These options enable or disable the automatic retrieving of keys
     from a keyserver when verifying signatures made by keys that are
     not on the local keyring.  The default is ‘--no-auto-key-retrieve’.

     The order of methods tried to lookup the key is:

     1.  If the option ‘--auto-key-import’ is set and the signatures
     includes an embedded key, that key is used to verify the signature
     and on verification success that key is imported.

     2.  If a preferred keyserver is specified in the signature and the
     option ‘honor-keyserver-url’ is active (which is not the default),
     that keyserver is tried.  Note that the creator of the signature
     uses the option ‘--sig-keyserver-url’ to specify the preferred
     keyserver for data signatures.

     3.  If the signature has the Signer's UID set (e.g., using
     ‘--sender’ while creating the signature) a Web Key Directory (WKD)
     lookup is done.  This is the default configuration but can be
     disabled by removing WKD from the auto-key-locate list or by using
     the option ‘--disable-signer-uid’.

     4.  If any keyserver is configured and the Issuer Fingerprint is
     part of the signature (since GnuPG 2.1.16), the configured
     keyservers are tried.

     Note that this option makes a "web bug" like behavior possible.
     Keyserver or Web Key Directory 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.

‘--auto-key-upload’
‘--no-auto-key-upload’
     If an LDAP keyserver is configured (in dirmngr) upload a newly
     created key directly to that server.  Also upload publicly visible
     changes to a key to such a server.  The no variant can be used to
     disable it in case it has been enabled in a configuration file.

‘--keyid-format {none|short|0xshort|long|0xlong}’
     Select how to display key IDs.  "none" does not show the key ID at
     all but shows the fingerprint in a separate line.  "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’
     This option is deprecated -- please use the ‘--keyserver’ in
     ‘dirmngr.conf’ instead.

     Use NAME as your keyserver.  This is the server that
     ‘--receive-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"/"hkps" for the HTTP (or compatible) keyservers or
     "ldap"/"ldaps" for the LDAP keyservers.  Note that your particular
     installation of GnuPG may have other keyserver types available as
     well.  Keyserver schemes are case-insensitive.

     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=VALUE}’
     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.

     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.  Note that this option introduces a "web bug": The
          creator of the key can see when the keys is refreshed.  Thus
          this option is not enabled by default.

     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.

     only-pubkeys
          Do not import secret keys.

     update-before-send
          Before sending a key to an LDAP server try to retrieve and
          merge that key first.  This is only done if the key is
          specified by fingerprint.  This is enabled by default.

     auto-key-retrieve
          This is an obsolete alias for the option ‘auto-key-retrieve’.
          Please do not use it; it will be removed in future versions.

     timeout
     http-proxy=VALUE
     verbose
     debug
     check-cert
     ca-cert-file
          These options have no more function since GnuPG 2.1.  Use the
          ‘dirmngr’ configuration options instead.

     The default list of options is: "self-sigs-only, repair-keys,
     repair-pks-subkey-bug, export-attributes, update-before-send".
     However, if the actual used source is an LDAP server
     "no-self-sigs-only" is assumed unless "self-sigs-only" has been
     explicitly configured.

‘--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)

‘--tofu-default-policy {auto|good|unknown|bad|ask}’
     The default TOFU policy (defaults to ‘auto’).  For more information
     about the meaning of this option, *note trust-model-tofu::.

‘--max-cert-depth N’
     Maximum depth of a certification chain (default is 5).

‘--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 safe 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.

‘--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.  ‘gpg’ always requires the agent.

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

‘--agent-program FILE’
     Specify an agent program to be used for secret key operations.  The
     default value is determined by running ‘gpgconf’ with the option
     ‘--list-dirs’.  Note that the pipe symbol (‘|’) is used for a
     regression test suite hack and may thus not be used in the file
     name.

‘--dirmngr-program FILE’
     Specify a dirmngr program to be used for keyserver access.  The
     default value is ‘/usr/local/bin/dirmngr’.

‘--disable-dirmngr’
     Entirely disable the use of the Dirmngr.

‘--no-autostart’
     Do not start the gpg-agent or the dirmngr if it has not yet been
     started and its service is required.  This option is mostly useful
     on machines where the connection to gpg-agent has been redirected
     to another machines.  If dirmngr is required on the remote machine,
     it may be started manually using ‘gpgconf --launch dirmngr’.

‘--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.

‘--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 ‘gpg’.

‘--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

4.2.2 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.

‘--recipient-file FILE’
‘-f’
     This option is similar to ‘--recipient’ except that it encrypts to
     a key stored in the given file.  FILE must be the name of a file
     containing exactly one key.  ‘gpg’ assumes that the key in this
     file is fully valid.

‘--hidden-recipient-file FILE’
‘-F’
     This option is similar to ‘--hidden-recipient’ except that it
     encrypts to a key stored in the given file.  FILE must be the name
     of a file containing exactly one key.  ‘gpg’ assumes that the key
     in this file is fully valid.

‘--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".  It is suggested to use a fingerprint or at
     least a long keyID for NAME.  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".  It is suggested to use a fingerprint or at
     least a long keyID for NAME.  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=VALUE}’
     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’.

‘--sender MBOX’
     This option has two purposes.  MBOX must either be a complete user
     ID containing a proper mail address or just a plain mail address.
     The option can be given multiple times.

     When creating a signature this option tells gpg the signing key's
     user id used to make the signature and embeds that user ID into the
     created signature (using OpenPGP's "Signer's User ID" subpacket).
     If the option is given multiple times a suitable user ID is picked.
     However, if the signing key was specified directly by using a mail
     address (i.e., not by using a fingerprint or key ID) this option is
     used and the mail address is embedded in the created signature.

     When verifying a signature MBOX is used to restrict the information
     printed by the TOFU code to matching user IDs.  If the option is
     used and the signature contains a "Signer's User ID" subpacket that
     information is is also used to restrict the printed information.
     Note that GnuPG considers only the mail address part of a User ID.

     If this option or the said subpacket is available the TRUST lines
     as printed by option ‘status-fd’ correspond to the corresponding
     User ID; if no User ID is known the TRUST lines are computed
     directly on the key and do not give any information about the User
     ID. In the latter case it his highly recommended to scripts and
     other frontends to evaluate the VALIDSIG line, retrieve the key and
     print all User IDs along with their validity (trust) information.

‘--try-secret-key NAME’
     For hidden recipients GPG needs to know the keys to use for trial
     decryption.  The key set with ‘--default-key’ is always tried
     first, but this is often not sufficient.  This option allows
     setting more keys to be used for trial decryption.  Although any
     valid user-id specification may be used for NAME it makes sense to
     use at least the long keyid to avoid ambiguities.  Note that
     gpg-agent might pop up a pinentry for a lot keys to do the trial
     decryption.  If you want to stop all further trial decryption you
     may use close-window button instead of the cancel button.

‘--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
     their own encrypt-to key from others.  If one has many secret keys
     this may lead to a major annoyance because all keys are tried in
     turn to decrypt something 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

4.2.3 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.  To write to stdout use ‘-’ as the filename.

‘--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".

‘--chunk-size N’
     The AEAD encryption mode encrypts the data in chunks so that a
     receiving side can check for transmission errors or tampering at
     the end of each chunk and does not need to delay this until all
     data has been received.  The used chunk size is 2^N byte.  The
     lowest allowed value for N is 6 (64 byte) and the largest is the
     default of 22 which creates chunks not larger than 4 MiB.

‘--input-size-hint N’
     This option can be used to tell GPG the size of the input data in
     bytes.  N must be a positive base-10 number.  This option is only
     useful if the input is not taken from a file.  GPG may use this
     hint to optimize its buffer allocation strategy.  It is also used
     by the ‘--status-fd’ line "PROGRESS" to provide a value for "total"
     if that is not available by other means.

‘--key-origin STRING[,URL]’
     gpg can track the origin of a key.  Certain origins are implicitly
     known (e.g., keyserver, web key directory) and set.  For a standard
     import the origin of the keys imported can be set with this option.
     To list the possible values use "help" for STRING.  Some origins
     can store an optional URL argument; such an URL can be appended to
     STRING delimited by a comma.

‘--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.

     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 achieved 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
          ‘--receive-keys’.

     import-show
     show-only
          Show a listing of the key as imported right before it is
          stored.  This can be combined with the option ‘--dry-run’ to
          only look at keys; the option ‘show-only’ is a shortcut for
          this combination.  The command ‘--show-keys’ is another
          shortcut for this.  Note that suffixes like '#' for "sec" and
          "sbb" lines may or may not be printed.

     import-export
          Run the entire import code but instead of storing the key to
          the local keyring write it to the output.  The export option
          ‘export-dane’ affect the output.  This option can for example
          be used to remove all invalid parts from a key without the
          need to store it.

     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.

     self-sigs-only
          Accept only self-signatures while importing a key.  All other
          key signatures are skipped at an early import stage.  This
          option can be used with ‘keyserver-options’ to mitigate
          attempts to flood a key with bogus signatures from a
          keyserver.  The drawback is that all other valid key
          signatures, as required by the Web of Trust are also not
          imported.  Note that when using this option along with
          import-clean it suppresses the final clean step after merging
          the imported key into the existing key.

     ignore-attributes
          Ignore all attribute user IDs (photo IDs) and their signatures
          while importing a key.

     repair-keys
          After import, fix various problems with the keys.  For
          example, this reorders signatures, and strips duplicate
          signatures.  Defaults to yes.

     bulk-import
          When used the keyboxd (option ‘use-keyboxd’ in ‘common.conf’)
          does the import within a single transaction.

     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.

     restore
     import-restore
          Import in key restore mode.  This imports all data which is
          usually skipped during import; including all GnuPG specific
          data.  All other contradicting options are overridden.

‘--import-filter {NAME=EXPR}’
‘--export-filter {NAME=EXPR}’
     These options define an import/export filter which are applied to
     the imported/exported keyblock right before it will be
     stored/written.  NAME defines the type of filter to use, EXPR the
     expression to evaluate.  The option can be used several times which
     then appends more expression to the same NAME.

     The available filter types are:

     keep-uid
          This filter will keep a user id packet and its dependent
          packets in the keyblock if the expression evaluates to true.

     drop-subkey
          This filter drops the selected subkeys.  Currently only
          implemented for ‘--export-filter’.

     drop-sig
          This filter drops the selected key signatures on user ids.
          Self-signatures are not considered.  Currently only
          implemented for ‘--import-filter’.

     select
          This filter is only implemented by ‘--list-filter’.  All
          property names may be used.

     For the syntax of the expression see the chapter "FILTER
     EXPRESSIONS". The property names for the expressions depend on the
     actual filter type and are indicated in the following table.  Note
     that all property names may also be used by ‘--list-filter’.

     Property names may be prefix with a scope delimited by a slash.
     Valid scopes are "pub" for public and secret primary keys, "sub"
     for public and secret subkeys, "uid" for for user-ID packets, and
     "sig" for signature packets.  Invalid scopes are currently ignored.

     The available properties are:

     uid
          A string with the user id.  (keep-uid)

     mbox
          The addr-spec part of a user id with mailbox or the empty
          string.  (keep-uid)

     algostr
          A string with the key algorithm description.  For example
          "rsa3072" or "ed25519".

     key_algo
          A number with the public key algorithm of a key or subkey
          packet.  (drop-subkey)

     key_size
          A number with the effective key size of a key or subkey
          packet.  (drop-subkey)

     key_created
     key_created_d
          The first is the timestamp a public key or subkey packet was
          created.  The second is the same but given as an ISO string,
          e.g., "2016-08-17".  (drop-subkey)

     key_expires
     key_expires_d
          The expiration time of a public key or subkey or 0 if it does
          not expire.  The second is the same but given as an ISO date
          string or an empty string e.g., "2038-01-19".

     fpr
          The hexified fingerprint of the current subkey or primary key.
          (drop-subkey)

     primary
          Boolean indicating whether the user id is the primary one.
          (keep-uid)

     expired
          Boolean indicating whether a user id (keep-uid), a key
          (drop-subkey), or a signature (drop-sig) expired.

     revoked
          Boolean indicating whether a user id (keep-uid) or a key
          (drop-subkey) has been revoked.

     disabled
          Boolean indicating whether a primary key is disabled.

     secret
          Boolean indicating whether a key or subkey is a secret one.
          (drop-subkey)

     usage
          A string indicating the usage flags for the subkey, from the
          sequence "ecsa?".  For example, a subkey capable of just
          signing and authentication would be an exact match for "sa".
          (drop-subkey)

     sig_created
     sig_created_d
          The first is the timestamp a signature packet was created.
          The second is the same but given as an ISO date string, e.g.,
          "2016-08-17".  (drop-sig)

     sig_expires
     sig_expires_d
          The expiration time of a signature packet or 0 if it does not
          expire.  The second is the same but given as an ISO date
          string or an empty string e.g.  "2038-01-19".

     sig_algo
          A number with the public key algorithm of a signature packet.
          (drop-sig)

     sig_digest_algo
          A number with the digest algorithm of a signature packet.
          (drop-sig)

     origin
          A string with the key origin or a question mark.  For example
          the string "wkd" is used if a key originated from a Web Key
          Directory lookup.

     lastupd
          The timestamp the key was last updated from a keyserver or the
          Web Key Directory.

     url
          A string with the the URL associated with the last key lookup.

‘--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.  Not
          including attribute user IDs is useful to export keys that 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.

     backup
     export-backup
          Export for use as a backup.  The exported data includes all
          data which is needed to restore the key or keys later with
          GnuPG. The format is basically the OpenPGP format but enhanced
          with GnuPG specific data.  All other contradicting options are
          overridden.

     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.

     keep-expired-subkeys
          Keep expired subkeys even with ‘export-minimal’ used.

     export-revocs
          Export only standalone revocation certificates of the key.
          This option does not export revocations of 3rd party
          certificate revocations.

     export-dane
          Instead of outputting the key material output OpenPGP DANE
          records suitable to put into DNS zone files.  An ORIGIN line
          is printed before each record to allow diverting the records
          to the corresponding zone file.

     mode1003
          Enable the use of a new secret key export format.  This format
          avoids the re-encryption as required with the current OpenPGP
          format and also improves the security of the secret key if it
          has been protected with a passphrase.  Note that an
          unprotected key is exported as-is and thus not secure; the
          general rule to convey secret keys in an OpenPGP encrypted
          file still applies with this mode.  Versions of GnuPG before
          2.4.0 are not able to import such a secret file.

‘--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.

‘--legacy-list-mode’
     Revert to the pre-2.1 public key list mode.  This only affects the
     human readable output and not the machine interface (i.e.,
     ‘--with-colons’).  Note that the legacy format does not convey
     suitable information for elliptic curves.

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

‘--with-subkey-fingerprint’
‘--without-subkey-fingerprint’
     If a fingerprint is printed for the primary key, this option forces
     printing of the fingerprint for all subkeys.  This could also be
     achieved by using the ‘--with-fingerprint’ twice but by using this
     option along with the default keyid-format "none" a compact
     fingerprint is printed.  Since version 2.6.0 this option is active
     by default; use the "without" variant to disable it.

‘--with-v5-fingerprint’
     In a colon mode listing emit "fp2" lines for version 4 OpenPGP keys
     having a v5 style fingerprint of the key.

‘--with-icao-spelling’
     Print the ICAO spelling of the fingerprint in addition to the hex
     digits.

‘--with-keygrip’
     Include the keygrip in the key listings.  In ‘--with-colons’ mode
     this is implicitly enable for secret keys.

‘--with-key-origin’
     Include the locally held information on the origin and last update
     of a key in a key listing.  In ‘--with-colons’ mode this is always
     printed.  This data is currently experimental and shall not be
     considered part of the stable API.

‘--with-wkd-hash’
     Print a Web Key Directory identifier along with each user ID in key
     listings.  This is an experimental feature and semantics may
     change.

‘--with-secret’
     Include info about the presence of a secret key in public key
     listings done with ‘--with-colons’.


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

4.2.4 OpenPGP protocol specific options
---------------------------------------

‘--force-ocb’
‘--force-aead’
     Force the use of AEAD encryption over MDC encryption.  AEAD is a
     modern and faster way to do authenticated encryption than the old
     MDC method.  ‘--force-aead’ is an alias and deprecated.  See also
     option ‘--chunk-size’.

‘--force-mdc’
‘--disable-mdc’
     These options are obsolete and have no effect since GnuPG 2.2.8.
     The MDC is always used unless the keys indicate that an AEAD
     algorithm can be used in which case AEAD is used.  But note: If the
     creation of a legacy non-MDC message is exceptionally required, the
     option ‘--rfc2440’ allows for this.

‘--disable-signer-uid’
     By default the user ID of the signing key is embedded in the data
     signature.  As of now this is only done if the signing key has been
     specified with ‘local-user’ using a mail address, or with ‘sender’.
     This information can be helpful for verifier to locate the key; see
     option ‘--auto-key-retrieve’.

‘--include-key-block’
‘--no-include-key-block’
     This option is used to embed the actual signing key into a data
     signature.  The embedded key is stripped down to a single user id
     and includes only the signing subkey used to create the signature
     as well as as valid encryption subkeys.  All other info is removed
     from the key to keep it and thus the signature small.  This option
     is the OpenPGP counterpart to the ‘gpgsm’ option ‘--include-certs’
     and allows the recipient of a signed message to reply encrypted to
     the sender without using any online directories to lookup the key.
     The default is ‘--no-include-key-block’.  See also the option
     ‘--auto-key-import’.

‘--personal-cipher-preferences STRING’
     Set the list of personal cipher preferences to STRING.  Use ‘gpg
     --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 ‘gpg
     --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., ‘--clear-sign’ or ‘--sign’).

‘--personal-compress-preferences STRING’
     Set the list of personal compression preferences to STRING.  Use
     ‘gpg --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 for symmetric encryption with a
     passphrase if ‘--personal-cipher-preferences’ and ‘--cipher-algo’
     are not given.  The default is AES-256.

‘--s2k-digest-algo NAME’
     Use NAME as the digest algorithm used to mangle the passphrases for
     symmetric encryption.  The default is SHA-1.

‘--s2k-mode N’
     Selects how passphrases for symmetric encryption are mangled.  If N
     is 0 a plain passphrase (which is in general not recommended) will
     be used, a 1 adds a salt (which should not be used) to the
     passphrase and a 3 (the default) iterates the whole process a
     number of times (see ‘--s2k-count’).

‘--s2k-count N’
     Specify how many times the passphrases mangling for symmetric
     encryption 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 set to
     the default of 3.


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

4.2.5 Compliance options
------------------------

These options control what GnuPG is compliant to.  Only one of these
options may be active at a time.  If multiple options are given, the
last one supersedes all the others.  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 now LibrePGP behavior, which
     is a different draft protocol that overlaps in some cases with
     OpenPGP.

‘--openpgp’
     Set all packet, cipher and digest options to OpenPGP compatible
     (RFC-9580) behavior.  Note that not all of RFC-9580 is implemented
     by GnuPG. 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.

‘--rfc4880’
     Set all packet, cipher and digest options to strict RFC-4880
     behavior.  RFC-4880 is the legacy version of the OpenPGP standard.
     This option implies ‘--allow-old-cipher-algos’.

‘--rfc4880bis’
     This option is obsolete; it is handled as an alias for ‘--gnupg’.

‘--rfc2440’
     Set all packet, cipher and digest options to strict RFC-2440
     behavior.  RFC-2440 is a very old version of OpenPGP. Note that by
     using this option encryption packets are created in a legacy mode
     without MDC protection.  This is dangerous and should thus only be
     used for experiments.  This option implies
     ‘--allow-old-cipher-algos’.  See also option ‘--ignore-mdc-error’.

‘--pgp6’
     This option is obsolete; it is handled as an alias for ‘--pgp7’.

‘--pgp7’
     Set up all options to be as PGP 7 compliant as possible.  This
     allowed the ciphers IDEA, 3DES, CAST5, AES128, AES192, AES256, and
     TWOFISH., the hashes MD5, SHA1 and RIPEMD160, and the compression
     algorithms none and ZIP. This option implies ‘--escape-from-lines’
     and disables ‘--throw-keyids’,

‘--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.

‘--compliance STRING’
     This option can be used instead of one of the options above.  Valid
     values for STRING are the above option names (without the double
     dash) and possibly others as shown when using "help" for STRING.

‘--min-rsa-length N’
     This option adjusts the compliance mode "de-vs" for stricter key
     size requirements.  For example, a value of 3000 turns rsa2048 and
     dsa2048 keys into non-VS-NfD compliant keys.

‘--require-pqc-encryption’
     This option forces the use of quantum-resistant encryption
     algorithms.  If not all public keys are quantum-resistant the
     encryption will fail.  The use of the symmetric encryption
     algorithm AES-256 is also enforced by this option.  On decryption a
     warning is printed for all non-quantum-resistant keys.  As of now
     the Kyber (ML-KEM768 and ML-KEM1024) algorithms and AES-256 are
     considered quantum-resistant; Kyber is always used in a composite
     scheme along with a classic ECC algorithm.

‘--disable-pqc-encryption’
     This option disables the use of quantum-resistant subkeys and uses
     a subkey with a non-quantum-resistant algorithm if available or
     throw an error otherwise.  The option is ignored if
     ‘--require-pqc-encryption’ is active.

‘--require-compliance’
     To check that data has been encrypted according to the rules of the
     current compliance mode, a gpg user needs to evaluate the status
     lines.  This is allows frontends to handle compliance check in a
     more flexible way.  However, for scripted use the required
     evaluation of the status-line requires quite some effort; this
     option can be used instead to make sure that the gpg process exits
     with a failure if the compliance rules are not fulfilled.  Note
     that this option has currently an effect only in "de-vs" mode.


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

4.2.6 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 option 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.

‘--compatibility-flags FLAGS’
     Set compatibility flags to work around problems due to
     non-compliant keys or data.  The FLAGS are given as a comma
     separated list of flag names and are OR-ed together.  The special
     flag "none" clears the list and allows one to start over with an
     empty list.  To get a list of available flags the sole word "help"
     can be used.

‘--debug-level LEVEL’
     Select the debug level for investigating problems.  LEVEL may be a
     numeric value or by 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’
     Set debug flags.  All flags are or-ed and FLAGS may be given in C
     syntax (e.g., 0x0042) or as a comma separated list of flag names.
     To get a list of all supported flags the single word "help" can be
     used.  This option is only useful for debugging and the behavior
     may change at any time without notice.

‘--debug-all’
     Set all useful debugging flags.

‘--debug-iolbf’
     Set stdout into line buffered mode.  This option is only honored
     when given on the command line.

‘--debug-set-iobuf-size N’
     Change the buffer size of the IOBUFs to N kilobyte.  Using 0 prints
     the current size.  Note well: This is a maintainer only option and
     may thus be changed or removed at any time without notice.

‘--debug-allow-large-chunks’
     To facilitate software tests and experiments this option allows one
     to specify a limit of up to 4 EiB (‘--chunk-size 62’).

‘--debug-ignore-expiration’
     This option tries to override certain key expiration dates.  It is
     only useful for certain regression tests.

‘--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").

     If you suffix EPOCH with an exclamation mark (!), the system time
     will appear to be frozen at the specified time.

‘--full-timestrings’
     Change the format of printed creation and expiration times from
     just the date to the date and time.  This is in general not useful
     and the same information is anyway available in ‘--with-colons’
     mode.  These longer strings are also not well aligned with other
     printed data.

‘--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.  Use ‘socket://’ to log to s socket.

‘--log-time’
     Prefix all log output with a timestamp even if no log file is used.

‘--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 cleartext 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, given twice the minor is also emitted, given thrice the
     micro is added, and given four times an operating system
     identification is also emitted.  ‘--no-emit-version’ (default)
     disables the version line.  Note that unless the
     ‘--compatibility-flags’ have a "no-manu" flag set, the GnuPG and
     Libgcrypt major and minor version (e.g.  "2.6+1.11") is included in
     signature packets and keys.

‘--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 UTF-8, 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.

‘--known-notation NAME’
     Adds NAME to a list of known critical signature notations.  The
     effect of this is that gpg will not mark a signature with a
     critical signature notation of that name as bad.  Note that gpg
     already knows by default about a few critical signatures notation
     names.

‘--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.  Using the empty string for STRING
     effectively removes the filename from the output.

‘--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 enables overwriting files by giving the
     sender control on how to store files.  Defaults to no.  Note that
     the option ‘--output’ overrides this option.

     A better approach than using this option is to decrypt to a
     temporary filename and then rename that file to the embedded file
     name after checking that the embedded filename is harmless.  When
     using the ‘--status-fd’ option gpg tells the filename as part of
     the PLAINTEXT status message.  If the filename is important, the
     use of ‘gpgtar’ is another option because gpgtar will never
     overwrite a file but decrypt the files to a new directory.

     Note also that unless a modern version 5 signature is used the
     embedded filename is not part of the signed data.

‘--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.  The option
     ‘--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.  The option
     ‘--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.  The option
     ‘--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.  Note also that a public key
     algorithm must be compatible with the specified digest algorithm;
     thus selecting an arbitrary digest algorithm may result in error
     messages from lower crypto layers or lead to security flaws.

‘--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.

‘--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 ‘gpg’ will request a new passphrase be
     repeated.  This is useful for helping memorize a passphrase.
     Defaults to 1 repetition; can be set to 0 to disable any passphrase
     repetition.  Note that a N greater than 1 will pop up the pinentry
     window N+1 times even if a modern pinentry with two entry fields is
     used.

‘--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 since Version 2.0 this passphrase is only used if the
     option ‘--batch’ has also been given.  Since Version 2.1 the
     ‘--pinentry-mode’ also needs to be set to ‘loopback’.

‘--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 since Version 2.0 this passphrase is only used if the
     option ‘--batch’ has also been given.  Since Version 2.1 the
     ‘--pinentry-mode’ also needs to be set to ‘loopback’.

‘--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 since Version 2.0 this passphrase is only used if the
     option ‘--batch’ has also been given.  Since Version 2.1 the
     ‘--pinentry-mode’ also needs to be set to ‘loopback’.

‘--pinentry-mode MODE’
     Set the pinentry mode to MODE.  Allowed values for MODE are:
     default
          Use the default of the agent, which is ‘ask’.
     ask
          Force the use of the Pinentry.
     cancel
          Emulate use of Pinentry's cancel button.
     error
          Return a Pinentry error ("No Pinentry").
     loopback
          Redirect Pinentry queries to the caller.  Note that in
          contrast to Pinentry the user is not prompted again if he
          enters a bad password.

‘--no-symkey-cache’
     Disable the passphrase cache used for symmetrical en- and
     decryption.  This cache is based on the message specific salt value
     (cf. ‘--s2k-mode’).

‘--request-origin ORIGIN’
     Tell gpg to assume that the operation ultimately originated at
     ORIGIN.  Depending on the origin certain restrictions are applied
     and the Pinentry may include an extra note on the origin.
     Supported values for ORIGIN are: ‘local’ which is the default,
     ‘remote’ to indicate a remote origin or ‘browser’ for an operation
     requested by a web browser.

‘--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.  It is required to decrypt old messages which did not use
     an MDC. It may also be useful if a message is partially garbled,
     but it is necessary to get as much data as possible out of that
     garbled message.  Be aware that a missing or failed MDC can be an
     indication of an attack.  Use with great caution; see also option
     ‘--rfc2440’.

‘--allow-old-cipher-algos’
     Old cipher algorithms like 3DES, IDEA, or CAST5 encrypt data using
     blocks of 64 bits; modern algorithms use blocks of 128 bit instead.
     To avoid certain attack on these old algorithms it is suggested not
     to encrypt more than 150 MiByte using the same key.  For this
     reason gpg does not allow the use of 64 bit block size algorithms
     for encryption unless this option is specified.  Some compliance
     modes already set or clear this flag and thus this flags should be
     used after a compliance mode setting.

‘--allow-weak-digest-algos’
     Signatures made with known-weak digest algorithms are normally
     rejected with an "invalid digest algorithm" message.  This option
     allows the verification of signatures made with such weak
     algorithms.  MD5 is the only digest algorithm considered weak by
     default.  See also ‘--weak-digest’ to reject other digest
     algorithms.

‘--weak-digest NAME’
     Treat the specified digest algorithm as weak.  Signatures made over
     weak digests algorithms are normally rejected.  This option can be
     supplied multiple times if multiple algorithms should be considered
     weak.  See also ‘--allow-weak-digest-algos’ to disable rejection of
     weak digests.  MD5 is always considered weak, and does not need to
     be listed explicitly.

‘--allow-weak-key-signatures’
     To avoid a minor risk of collision attacks on third-party key
     signatures made using SHA-1, those key signatures are considered
     invalid.  This options allows one to override this restriction.

‘--override-compliance-check’
     This was a temporary introduced option and has no more effect.

‘--no-default-keyring’
     Do not add the default keyring to the list of keyrings.  Note that
     GnuPG needs for almost all operations a keyring.  Thus if you use
     this option and do not provide alternate keyrings via ‘--keyring’,
     then GnuPG will still use the default keyring.

     Note that if the option ‘use-keyboxd’ is enabled in ‘common.conf’,
     no keyrings are used at all and keys are all maintained by the
     keyboxd process in its own database.

‘--no-keyring’
     Do not use any keyring at all.  This overrides the default and all
     options which specify 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.

‘--list-signatures’
‘--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’.  Note that in contrast to ‘--check-signatures’
     the key signatures are not verified.  This command can be used to
     create a list of signing keys missing in the local keyring; for
     example:

                gpg --list-sigs --with-colons USERID | \
                  awk -F: '$1=="sig" && $2=="?" {if($13){print $13}else{print $5}}'

‘--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’
‘--show-only-session-key’
     Display the session key used for one message.  See
     ‘--override-session-key’ for the counterpart of this option.  The
     variant ‘--show-only-session-key’ does not actually use the session
     key but stops processing after having printed the session key.

     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.

     You can also use this option if you receive an encrypted message
     which is abusive or offensive, to prove to the administrators of
     the messaging system that the ciphertext transmitted corresponds to
     an inappropriate plaintext so they can take action against the
     offending user.

‘--override-session-key STRING’
‘--override-session-key-fd FD’
     Don't use the public key but the session key STRING respective the
     session key taken from the first line read from file descriptor FD.
     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.  Note that using
     ‘--override-session-key’ may reveal the session key to all local
     users via the global process table.  Often it is useful to combine
     this option with ‘--no-keyring’.

‘--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 VALUE’
     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 VALUE’
     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".

‘--default-new-key-algo STRING’
     This option can be used to change the default algorithms for key
     generation.  The STRING is similar to the arguments required for
     the command ‘--quick-add-key’ but slightly different.  You need to
     consult the source code to learn the details.  Note that the
     advanced key generation commands can always be used to specify a
     key algorithm directly.  Setting a compliance mode will set or
     clear this flag, so it should only be used after a compliance mode
     setting.

‘--no-auto-trust-new-key’
     When creating a new key the ownertrust of the new key is set to
     ultimate.  This option disables this and the user needs to manually
     assign an ownertrust value.

‘--force-sign-key’
     This option modifies the behaviour of the commands
     ‘--quick-sign-key’, ‘--quick-lsign-key’, and the "sign"
     sub-commands of ‘--edit-key’ by forcing the creation of a key
     signature, even if one already exists.

‘--forbid-gen-key’
     This option is intended for use in the global config file to
     disallow the use of generate key commands.  Those commands will
     then fail with the error code for Not Enabled.

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

‘--allow-multiple-messages’
‘--no-allow-multiple-messages’
     These are obsolete options; they have no more effect since GnuPG
     2.2.8.

‘--enable-special-filenames’
     This option 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.

‘--disable-fd-translation’
     This option changes the behaviour for all following options to
     expect libc file descriptors instead of HANDLE values on the
     command line.  The option has an effect only on Windows.

‘--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-key’ 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.

‘--list-gcrypt-config’
     Display various internal configuration parameters of Libgcrypt.

‘--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.

‘--chuid UID’
     Change the current user to UID which may either be a number or a
     name.  This can be used from the root account to run gpg for
     another user.  If UID is not the current UID a standard PATH is set
     and the envvar GNUPGHOME is unset.  To override the latter the
     option ‘--homedir’ can be used.  This option has only an effect
     when used on the command line.  This option has currently no effect
     at all on Windows.

   ---------- 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

4.2.7 Deprecated 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 was useful when
     communicating between two platforms with different line ending
     conventions (UNIX-like to Mac, Mac to Windows, etc).
     ‘--no-textmode’ disables this option, and is the default.  Note
     that this is a legacy option which should not anymore be used by
     any modern software.

‘--force-v3-sigs’
‘--no-force-v3-sigs’
‘--force-v4-certs’
‘--no-force-v4-certs’
     These options are obsolete and have no effect since GnuPG 2.1.

‘--show-photos’
‘--no-show-photos’
     Causes ‘--list-keys’, ‘--list-signatures’, ‘--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.

‘--show-notation’
‘--no-show-notation’
     Show signature notations in the ‘--list-signatures’ or
     ‘--check-signatures’ 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-signatures’ or ‘--check-signatures’
     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.

‘--personal-aead-preferences STRING’
     This option is deprecated and has no more effect since version
     2.3.9.

‘--aead-algo NAME’
     This option is deprecated and has no more effect since version
     2.3.9.

‘--not-dash-escaped’
     This option is deprecated since version 2.5.15 and has actually
     been obsolete for many more years.  The verification code in gpg
     also ignores this special mode unless a compatibility flag has been
     used.  This option was used to change 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.


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

4.3 Configuration files
=======================

There are a few configuration files to control certain aspects of
‘gpg’'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 ‘gpg’ 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.

‘common.conf’
     This is an optional configuration file read by ‘gpg’ on startup.
     It may contain options pertaining to all components of GnuPG. Its
     current main use is for the "use-keyboxd" option.  If the default
     home directory ‘~/.gnupg’ does not exist, GnuPG creates this
     directory and a ‘common.conf’ file with "use-keyboxd".

   Note that on larger installations, it is useful to put predefined
files into the directory ‘/usr/local/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 ‘gpg’ creates and maintains a few other files;
They all live in the current home directory (*note option --homedir::).
Only the ‘gpg’ program may modify these files.

‘~/.gnupg’
     This is the default home directory which is used if neither the
     environment variable ‘GNUPGHOME’ nor the option ‘--homedir’ is
     given.

‘~/.gnupg/pubring.gpg’
     The public keyring using a legacy format.  You should backup this
     file.

     If this file is not available, ‘gpg’ defaults to the new keybox
     format and creates a file ‘pubring.kbx’ unless that file already
     exists in which case that file will also be used for OpenPGP keys.

     Note that in the case that both files, ‘pubring.gpg’ and
     ‘pubring.kbx’ exists but the latter has no OpenPGP keys, the legacy
     file ‘pubring.gpg’ will be used.  Take care: GnuPG versions before
     2.1 will always use the file ‘pubring.gpg’ because they do not know
     about the new keybox format.  In the case that you have to use
     GnuPG 1.4 to decrypt archived data you should keep this file.

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

‘~/.gnupg/pubring.kbx’
     The public keyring using the new keybox format.  This file is
     shared with ‘gpgsm’.  You should backup this file.  See above for
     the relation between this file and it predecessor.

     To convert an existing ‘pubring.gpg’ file to the keybox format, you
     first backup the ownertrust values, then rename ‘pubring.gpg’ to
     ‘publickeys.backup’, so it won’t be recognized by any GnuPG
     version, run import, and finally restore the ownertrust values:

            $ cd ~/.gnupg
            $ gpg --export-ownertrust >otrust.lst
            $ mv pubring.gpg publickeys.backup
            $ gpg --import-options restore --import publickeys.backup
            $ gpg --import-ownertrust otrust.lst

‘~/.gnupg/pubring.kbx.lock’
     The lock file for ‘pubring.kbx’.

‘~/.gnupg/secring.gpg’
     The legacy secret keyring as used by GnuPG versions before 2.1.  It
     is not used by GnuPG 2.1 and later.  You may want to keep it in
     case you have to use GnuPG 1.4 to decrypt archived data.

‘~/.gnupg/secring.gpg.lock’
     The lock file for the legacy secret keyring.

‘~/.gnupg/.gpg-v21-migrated’
     File indicating that a migration to GnuPG 2.1 has been done.

‘~/.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/openpgp-revocs.d/’
     This is the directory where gpg stores pre-generated revocation
     certificates.  The file name corresponds to the OpenPGP fingerprint
     of the respective key.  It is suggested to backup those
     certificates and if the primary private key is not stored on the
     disk to move them to an external storage device.  Anyone who can
     access these files is able to revoke the corresponding key.  You
     may want to print them out.  You should backup all files in this
     directory and take care to keep this backup closed away.

   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
     This variable is obsolete; it was used by GnuPG versions before
     2.1.

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.

GNUPG_BUILD_ROOT
     This variable is only used by the regression test suite as a helper
     under operating systems without proper support to figure out the
     name of a process' text file.

GNUPG_EXEC_DEBUG_FLAGS
     This variable allows one to enable diagnostics for process
     management.  A numeric decimal value is expected.  Bit 0 enables
     general diagnostics, bit 1 enables certain warnings on Windows.

GNUPG_ASSUME_COMPLIANCE
     Debug helper to set the system into an assume compliance state.
     For example in de-vs mode this will return 2023 as identifier
     instead of 23.

   When calling the gpg-agent component ‘gpg’ sends a set of environment
variables to gpg-agent.  The names of these variables can be listed
using the command:

       gpg-connect-agent 'getinfo std_env_names' /bye | awk '$1=="D" {print $2}'


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

4.4 Examples
============

gpg -se -r ‘Bob’ ‘file’
     sign and encrypt for user Bob

gpg -clear-sign ‘file’
     make a cleartext 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’ [‘datafile’]
     Verify the signature of the file but do not output the data unless
     requested.  The second form is used for detached signatures, where
     ‘sigfile’ is the detached signature (either ASCII armored or
     binary) and ‘datafile’ 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.  If the option ‘--output’ is also
     used the signed data is written to the file specified by that
     option; use ‘-’ to write the signed data to stdout.

FILTER EXPRESSIONS
******************

The options ‘--import-filter’ and ‘--export-filter’ use expressions with
this syntax (square brackets indicate an optional part and curly braces
a repetition, white space between the elements are allowed):

       [lc] {[{flag}] PROPNAME op VALUE [lc]}

   The name of a property (PROPNAME) may only consist of letters, digits
and underscores.  The description for the filter type describes which
properties are defined.  If an undefined property is used it evaluates
to the empty string.  Unless otherwise noted, the VALUE must always be
given and may not be the empty string.  No quoting is defined for the
value, thus the value may not contain the strings ‘&&’ or ‘||’, which
are used as logical connection operators.  The flag ‘--’ can be used to
remove this restriction.

   Numerical values are computed as long int; standard C notation
applies.  LC is the logical connection operator; either ‘&&’ for a
conjunction or ‘||’ for a disjunction.  A conjunction is assumed at the
begin of an expression.  Conjunctions have higher precedence than
disjunctions.  If VALUE starts with one of the characters used in any OP
a space after the OP is required.

The supported operators (OP) are:

=~
     Substring must match.

!~
     Substring must not match.

=
     The full string must match.

<>
     The full string must not match.

==
     The numerical value must match.

!=
     The numerical value must not match.

<=
     The numerical value of the field must be LE than the value.

<
     The numerical value of the field must be LT than the value.

>
     The numerical value of the field must be GT than the value.

>=
     The numerical value of the field must be GE than the value.

-le
     The string value of the field must be less or equal than the value.

-lt
     The string value of the field must be less than the value.

-gt
     The string value of the field must be greater than the value.

-ge
     The string value of the field must be greater or equal than the
     value.

-n
     True if value is not empty (no value allowed).

-z
     True if value is empty (no value allowed).

-t
     Alias for "PROPNAME != 0" (no value allowed).

-f
     Alias for "PROPNAME == 0" (no value allowed).

Values for FLAG must be space separated.  The supported flags are:

-
     VALUE spans to the end of the expression.
-^
     The substring match is left anchored.
-c
     The string match in this part is done case-sensitive.
-t
     Leading and trailing spaces are not removed from VALUE.  The
     optional single space after OP is here required.

   The filter options concatenate several specifications for a filter of
the same type.  For example the four options in this example:

      --import-filter keep-uid="uid =~ Alfa"
      --import-filter keep-uid="&& uid !~ Test"
      --import-filter keep-uid="|| uid =~ Alpha"
      --import-filter keep-uid="uid !~ Test"

which is equivalent to

      --import-filter \
       keep-uid="uid =~ Alfa" && uid !~ Test" || uid =~ Alpha" && "uid !~ Test"

   imports only the user ids of a key containing the strings "Alfa" or
"Alpha" but not the string "test".

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

The program returns 0 if there are no severe errors, 1 if at least a
signature was bad, and other error codes for fatal errors.

   Note that signature verification requires exact knowledge of what has
been signed and by whom it has been signed.  Using only the return code
is thus not an appropriate way to verify a signature by a script.
Either make proper use or the status codes or use the ‘gpgv’ tool which
has been designed to make signature verification easy for scripts.

WARNINGS
********

Use a good password for your user account and make sure that all
security issues are always fixed on your machine.  Also employ diligent
physical protection to your machine.  Consider to use a good passphrase
as a last resort protection to your secret key in the case your machine
gets stolen.  It is important that your secret key is never leaked.
Using an easy to carry around token or smartcard with the secret key is
often a advisable.

   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.

   For scripted or other unattended use of ‘gpg’ make sure to use the
machine-parseable interface and not the default interface which is
intended for direct use by humans.  The machine-parseable interface
provides a stable and well documented API independent of the locale or
future changes of ‘gpg’.  To enable this interface use the options
‘--with-colons’ and ‘--status-fd’.  For certain operations the option
‘--command-fd’ may come handy too.  See this man page and the file
‘DETAILS’ for the specification of the interface.  Note that the GnuPG
"info" pages as well as the PDF version of the GnuPG manual features a
chapter on unattended use of GnuPG. As an alternative the library
‘GPGME’ can be used as a high-level abstraction on top of that
interface.

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 <https://bugs.gnupg.org>.


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

4.5 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:

* Programmatic use of GnuPG:: Programmatic use of GnuPG
* Ephemeral home directories:: Ephemeral home directories
* The quick key manipulation interface:: The quick key manipulation interface
* Unattended GPG key generation::  Unattended key generation


File: gnupg.info,  Node: Programmatic use of GnuPG,  Next: Ephemeral home directories,  Up: Unattended Usage of GPG

4.5.1 Programmatic use of GnuPG
-------------------------------

Please consider using GPGME instead of calling ‘gpg’ directly.  GPGME
offers a stable, backend-independent interface for many cryptographic
operations.  It supports OpenPGP and S/MIME, and also allows interaction
with various GnuPG components.

   GPGME provides a C-API, and comes with bindings for C++, Qt, and
Python.  Bindings for other languages are available.

   If for some reasons you cannot use GPGME, please make sure to use the
‘--status-fd’ and ‘--with-colons’ options to clearly obtain information
from GnuPG rather than parsing stdout which is subject to change,
localization, and is otherwise intermingled with status output.


File: gnupg.info,  Node: Ephemeral home directories,  Next: The quick key manipulation interface,  Prev: Programmatic use of GnuPG,  Up: Unattended Usage of GPG

4.5.2 Ephemeral home directories
--------------------------------

Sometimes you want to contain effects of some operation, for example you
want to import a key to inspect it, but you do not want this key to be
added to your keyring.  In earlier versions of GnuPG, it was possible to
specify alternate keyring files for both public and secret keys.  In
modern GnuPG versions, however, we changed how secret keys are stored in
order to better protect secret key material, and it was not possible to
preserve this interface.

   The preferred way to do this is to use ephemeral home directories.
This technique works across all versions of GnuPG.

   Create a temporary directory, create (or copy) a configuration that
meets your needs, make ‘gpg’ use this directory either using the
environment variable GNUPGHOME, or the option ‘--homedir’.  GPGME
supports this too on a per-context basis, by modifying the engine info
of contexts.  Now execute whatever operation you like, import and export
key material as necessary.  Once finished, you can delete the directory.
All GnuPG backend services that were started will detect this and shut
down.


File: gnupg.info,  Node: The quick key manipulation interface,  Next: Unattended GPG key generation,  Prev: Ephemeral home directories,  Up: Unattended Usage of GPG

4.5.3 The quick key manipulation interface
------------------------------------------

Recent versions of GnuPG have an interface to manipulate keys without
using the interactive command ‘--edit-key’.  This interface was added
mainly for the benefit of GPGME (please consider using GPGME, see the
manual subsection "Programmatic use of GnuPG"). This interface is
described in the subsection "How to manage your keys".


File: gnupg.info,  Node: Unattended GPG key generation,  Prev: The quick key manipulation interface,  Up: Unattended Usage of GPG

4.5.4 Unattended key generation
-------------------------------

The command ‘--generate-key’ may be used along with the option ‘--batch’
for unattended key generation.  This is the legacy way of generating
key.  New applications should consider the use of the quick key
manipulation interface described in the previous subsection "The quick
key manipulation interface".

   The parameters for the key 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 white 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, their
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’ but control
statements may be placed anywhere.  The order of the parameters does not
matter except for ‘Key-Type’.  The parameters are only used for the
generated keyblock (primary and subkeys); parameters from previous sets
are not used.  Some syntax checks may be performed.  Key commences when
either the end of the parameter file is reached, the next ‘Key-Type’
parameter is encountered, or 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
     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).

     See the previous subsection "Ephemeral home directories" for a more
     robust way to contain side-effects.

%secring FILENAME
     This option is a no-op for GnuPG 2.1 and later.

     See the previous subsection "Ephemeral home directories".

%ask-passphrase
%no-ask-passphrase
     This option is a no-op since GnuPG version 2.1.

%no-protection
     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 ‘gpg --gpgconf-list’.  For ECC keys
     this parameter is ignored.

Key-Curve: CURVE
     The requested elliptic curve of the generated key.  This is a
     required parameter for ECC keys.  It is ignored for non-ECC keys.

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 ‘gpg --gpgconf-list’.

Subkey-Curve: CURVE
     Key curve for a subkey; similar to ‘Key-Curve’.

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 to use the Pinentry dialog to ask for a
     passphrase.

Name-Real: NAME
Name-Comment: COMMENT
Name-Email: EMAIL
User-Id: FULL-USER-ID
     The three parts of a user name.  Remember to use UTF-8 encoding
     here.  As an alternative "User-Id" can be used to specify the
     entire user-id with a single UTF-8 string.

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.

Creation-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.  FPR may not
     contain spaces or colons.  The optional ‘sensitive’ flag marks the
     designated revoker as sensitive information.  Only v4 and v5 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 in an ephemeral home
directory:
     $ export GNUPGHOME="$(mktemp -d)"
     $ 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
          # Do a commit here, so that we can later print "done" :-)
          %commit
          %echo done
     EOF
     $ gpg --batch --generate-key foo
      [...]
     $ gpg --list-secret-keys
     /tmp/tmp.0NQxB74PEf/pubring.kbx
     -------------------------------
     sec   dsa1024 2016-12-16 [SCA]
           768E895903FC1C44045C8CB95EEBDB71E9E849D0
     uid           [ultimate] Joe Tester (with stupid passphrase) <joe@foo.bar>
     ssb   elg1024 2016-12-16 [E]

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
          # 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

5 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

5.1 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

5.1.1 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

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

‘--encrypt’
     Perform an encryption.  The keys the data is encrypted to 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.

