gpgsm - CMS encryption and signing tool
gpgsm [
--homedir dir] [
--options file]
[
options]
command [
args]
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.
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.
- --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.
- --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.
- --generate-key
-
--gen-key This command allows the creation of a
certificate signing request or a self-signed certificate. It is commonly
used along with the --output option to save the created CSR or
certificate into a file. If used with the --batch a parameter file
is used to create the CSR or certificate and it is further possible to
create non-self-signed certificates.
- --list-keys
-
-k List all available certificates stored in the
local key database. Note that the displayed data might be reformatted for
better human readability and illegal characters are replaced by safe
substitutes.
- --list-secret-keys
-
-K List all available certificates for which a
corresponding a secret key is available.
- --list-external-keys pattern
- List certificates matching pattern using an external
server. This utilizes the dirmngr service.
- --list-chain
- Same as --list-keys but also prints all keys making
up the chain.
- --dump-cert
-
--dump-keys List all available certificates stored
in the local key database using a format useful mainly for debugging.
- --dump-chain
- Same as --dump-keys but also prints all keys making
up the chain.
- --dump-secret-keys
- List all available certificates for which a corresponding a
secret key is available using a format useful mainly for debugging.
- --dump-external-keys pattern
- List certificates matching pattern using an external
server. This utilizes the dirmngr service. It uses a format useful
mainly for debugging.
- --keydb-clear-some-cert-flags
- This is a debugging aid to reset certain flags in the key
database which are used to cache certain certificate stati. It is
especially useful if a bad CRL or a weird running OCSP responder did
accidentally revoke certificate. There is no security issue with this
command because gpgsm always make sure that the validity of a
certificate is checked right before it is used.
- --delete-keys pattern
- Delete the keys matching pattern. Note that there is
no command to delete the secret part of the key directly. In case you need
to do this, you should run the command gpgsm --dump-secret-keys
KEYID before you delete the key, copy the string of hex-digits in the
``keygrip'' line and delete the file consisting of these hex-digits and
the suffix .key from the ‘private-keys-v1.d’
directory below our GnuPG home directory (usually ‘
~/.gnupg’).
- --export [pattern]
- Export all certificates stored in the Keybox or those
specified by the optional pattern. Those pattern consist of a list
of user ids (see: [how-to-specify-a-user-id]). When used along with the
--armor option a few informational lines are prepended before each
block. There is one limitation: As there is no commonly agreed upon way to
pack more than one certificate into an ASN.1 structure, the binary export
(i.e. without using armor) works only for the export of one
certificate. Thus it is required to specify a pattern which yields
exactly one certificate. Ephemeral certificate are only exported if all
pattern are given as fingerprints or keygrips.
- --export-secret-key-p12 key-id
- Export the private key and the certificate identified by
key-id using the PKCS#12 format. When used with the --armor
option a few informational lines are prepended to the output. Note, that
the PKCS#12 format is not very secure and proper transport security should
be used to convey the exported key. (See: [option --p12-charset].)
- --export-secret-key-p8 key-id
-
--export-secret-key-raw key-id Export the
private key of the certificate identified by key-id with any
encryption stripped. The ...-raw command exports in PKCS#1 format;
the ...-p8 command exports in PKCS#8 format. When used with the
--armor option a few informational lines are prepended to the
output. These commands are useful to prepare a key for use on a TLS
server.
- --import [files]
- Import the certificates from the PEM or binary encoded
files as well as from signed-only messages. This command may also be used
to import a secret key from a PKCS#12 file.
- --learn-card
- Read information about the private keys from the smartcard
and import the certificates from there. This command utilizes the
gpg-agent and in turn the scdaemon.
- --change-passphrase user_id
-
--passwd user_id Change the passphrase of the
private key belonging to the certificate specified as user_id.
Note, that changing the passphrase/PIN of a smartcard is not yet
supported.
GPGSM features a bunch of options to control the exact behaviour and to
change the default configuration.
These options are used to change the configuration and are usually found in the
option file.
- --options file
- Reads configuration from file instead of from the
default per-user configuration file. The default configuration file is
named ‘ gpgsm.conf’ and expected in the
‘.gnupg’ directory directly below the home directory
of the user.
- --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.
To install GnuPG as a portable application under Windows, create an empty
file named ‘ gpgconf.ctl’ in the same directory as
the tool ‘ gpgconf.exe’. The root of the installation
is then that directory; or, if ‘ gpgconf.exe’ has
been installed directly below a directory named ‘
bin’, its parent directory. You also need to make sure that
the following directories exist and are writable: ‘
ROOT/home’ for the GnuPG home and ‘
ROOT/var/cache/gnupg’ for internal cache files.
- -v
- --verbose
- Outputs additional information while running. You can
increase the verbosity by giving several verbose commands to gpgsm,
such as ‘-vv’.
- --keyserver string
- This is a deprecated option. It was used to add an LDAP
server to use for X.509 certificate and CRL lookup. The alias
--ldapserver existed from version 2.2.28 to 2.2.33 but is now
entirely ignored.
LDAP servers must be given in the configuration for dirmngr.
- --policy-file filename
- Change the default name of the policy file to
filename.
- --agent-program file
- Specify an agent program to be used for secret key
operations. The default value is determined by running the command
gpgconf. 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 CRL checks. The
default value is ‘ /usr/bin/dirmngr’.
- --prefer-system-dirmngr
- This option is obsolete and ignored.
- --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.
- --no-secmem-warning
- Do not print a warning when the so called "secure
memory" cannot be used.
- --log-file file
- When running in server mode, append all logging output to
file. Use ‘ socket://’ to log to socket.
- --enable-policy-checks
-
--disable-policy-checks By default policy checks are
enabled. These options may be used to change it.
- --enable-crl-checks
-
--disable-crl-checks By default the CRL checks are
enabled and the DirMngr is used to check for revoked certificates. The
disable option is most useful with an off-line network connection to
suppress this check and also to avoid that new certificates introduce a
web bug by including a certificate specific CRL DP. The disable option
also disables an issuer certificate lookup via the authorityInfoAccess
property of the certificate; the --enable-issuer-key-retrieve can
be used to make use of that property anyway.
- --enable-trusted-cert-crl-check
-
--disable-trusted-cert-crl-check By default the CRL
for trusted root certificates are checked like for any other certificates.
This allows a CA to revoke its own certificates voluntary without the need
of putting all ever issued certificates into a CRL. The disable option may
be used to switch this extra check off. Due to the caching done by the
Dirmngr, there will not be any noticeable performance gain. Note, that
this also disables possible OCSP checks for trusted root certificates. A
more specific way of disabling this check is by adding the ``relax''
keyword to the root CA line of the ‘ trustlist.txt’
- --force-crl-refresh
- Tell the dirmngr to reload the CRL for each request. For
better performance, the dirmngr will actually optimize this by suppressing
the loading for short time intervals (e.g. 30 minutes). This option is
useful to make sure that a fresh CRL is available for certificates hold in
the keybox. The suggested way of doing this is by using it along with the
option --with-validation for a key listing command. This option
should not be used in a configuration file.
- --enable-issuer-based-crl-check
- Run a CRL check even for certificates which do not have any
CRL distribution point. This requires that a suitable LDAP server has been
configured in Dirmngr and that the CRL can be found using the issuer. This
option reverts to what GnuPG did up to version 2.2.20. This option is in
general not useful.
- --enable-ocsp
-
--disable-ocsp By default OCSP checks are disabled.
The enable option may be used to enable OCSP checks via Dirmngr. If CRL
checks are also enabled, CRLs will be used as a fallback if for some
reason an OCSP request will not succeed. Note, that you have to allow OCSP
requests in Dirmngr's configuration too (option --allow-ocsp) and
configure Dirmngr properly. If you do not do so you will get the error
code ‘Not supported’.
- --auto-issuer-key-retrieve
- If a required certificate is missing while validating the
chain of certificates, try to load that certificate from an external
location. This usually means that Dirmngr is employed to search for the
certificate. Note that this option makes a "web bug" like
behavior possible. LDAP server operators can see which keys you request,
so by sending you a message signed by a brand new key (which you naturally
will not have on your local keybox), the operator can tell both your IP
address and the time when you verified the signature.
- --validation-model name
- This option changes the default validation model. The only
possible values are "shell" (which is the default),
"chain" which forces the use of the chain model and
"steed" for a new simplified model. The chain model is also used
if an option in the ‘ trustlist.txt’ or an attribute
of the certificate requests it. However the standard model (shell) is in
that case always tried first.
- --ignore-cert-extension oid
- Add oid to the list of ignored certificate
extensions. The oid is expected to be in dotted decimal form, like
2.5.29.3. This option may be used more than once. Critical flagged
certificate extensions matching one of the OIDs in the list are treated as
if they are actually handled and thus the certificate will not be rejected
due to an unknown critical extension. Use this option with care because
extensions are usually flagged as critical for a reason.
- --armor
-
-a Create PEM encoded output. Default is binary
output.
- --base64
- Create Base-64 encoded output; i.e. PEM without the header
lines.
- --assume-armor
- Assume the input data is PEM encoded. Default is to
autodetect the encoding but this is may fail.
- --assume-base64
- Assume the input data is plain base-64 encoded.
- --assume-binary
- Assume the input data is binary encoded.
- --p12-charset name
-
gpgsm uses the UTF-8 encoding when encoding
passphrases for PKCS#12 files. This option may be used to force the
passphrase to be encoded in the specified encoding name. This is
useful if the application used to import the key uses a different encoding
and thus will not be able to import a file generated by gpgsm.
Commonly used values for name are Latin1 and CP850.
Note that gpgsm itself automagically imports any file with a
passphrase encoded to the most commonly used encodings.
- --default-key user_id
- Use user_id as the standard key for signing. This
key is used if no other key has been defined as a signing key. Note, that
the first --local-users option also sets this key if it has not yet
been set; however --default-key always overrides this.
- --local-user user_id
- -u user_id
- Set the user(s) to be used for signing. The default is the
first secret key found in the database.
- --recipient name
-
-r Encrypt to the user id name. There are
several ways a user id may be given (see: [how-to-specify-a-user-id]).
- --output file
-
-o file Write output to file. The
default is to write it to stdout.
- --with-key-data
- Displays extra information with the --list-keys
commands. Especially a line tagged grp is printed which tells you
the keygrip of a key. This string is for example used as the file name of
the secret key. Implies --with-colons.
- --with-validation
- When doing a key listing, do a full validation check for
each key and print the result. This is usually a slow operation because it
requires a CRL lookup and other operations.
When used along with --import, a validation of the certificate to
import is done and only imported if it succeeds the test. Note that this
does not affect an already available certificate in the DB. This option is
therefore useful to simply verify a certificate.
- --with-md5-fingerprint
- For standard key listings, also print the MD5 fingerprint
of the certificate.
- --with-keygrip
- Include the keygrip in standard key listings. Note that the
keygrip is always listed in --with-colons mode.
- --with-secret
- Include info about the presence of a secret key in public
key listings done with --with-colons.
- --include-certs n
- Using n of -2 includes all certificate except for
the root cert, -1 includes all certs, 0 does not include any certs, 1
includes only the signers cert and all other positive values include up to
n certificates starting with the signer cert. The default is -2.
- --cipher-algo oid
- Use the cipher algorithm with the ASN.1 object identifier
oid for encryption. For convenience the strings 3DES,
AES and AES256 may be used instead of their OIDs. The
default is AES (2.16.840.1.101.3.4.1.2).
- --digest-algo name
- Use name as the message digest algorithm. Usually
this algorithm is deduced from the respective signing certificate. This
option forces the use of the given algorithm and may lead to severe
interoperability problems.
- --extra-digest-algo name
- Sometimes signatures are broken in that they announce a
different digest algorithm than actually used. gpgsm uses a
one-pass data processing model and thus needs to rely on the announced
digest algorithms to properly hash the data. As a workaround this option
may be used to tell gpgsm to also hash the data using the algorithm
name; this slows processing down a little bit but allows
verification of such broken signatures. If gpgsm prints an error
like ``digest algo 8 has not been enabled'' you may want to try this
option, with ‘SHA256’ for name.
- --compliance string
- Set the compliance mode. Valid values are 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-compliance
- To check that data has been encrypted according to the
rules of the current compliance mode, a gpgsm 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 gpgsm 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.
- --ignore-cert-with-oid oid
- Add oid to the list of OIDs to be checked while
reading certificates from smartcards. The oid is expected to be in
dotted decimal form, like 2.5.29.3. This option may be used more
than once. As of now certificates with an extended key usage matching one
of those OIDs are ignored during a --learn-card operation and not
imported. This option can help to keep the local key database clear of
unneeded certificates stored on smartcards.
- --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").
- --with-ephemeral-keys
- Include ephemeral flagged keys in the output of key
listings. Note that they are included anyway if the key specification for
a listing is given as fingerprint or keygrip.
- --compatibility-flags flags
- Set compatibility flags to work around problems due to
non-compliant certificates 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 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
- This option is only useful for debugging and the behaviour
may change at any time without notice; using --debug-levels is the
preferred method to select the debug verbosity. FLAGS are bit encoded and
may be given in usual C-Syntax. The currently defined bits are:
- 0 (1)
- X.509 or OpenPGP protocol related data
- 1 (2)
- values of big number integers
- 2 (4)
- low level crypto operations
- 5 (32)
- memory allocation
- 6 (64)
- caching
- 7 (128)
- show memory statistics
- 9 (512)
- write hashed data to files named dbgmd-000*
- 10 (1024)
- trace Assuan protocol
Note, that all flags set using this option may get overridden by
--debug-level.
- --debug-all
- Same as --debug=0xffffffff
- --debug-allow-core-dump
- Usually gpgsm tries to avoid dumping core by well
written code and by disabling core dumps for security reasons. However,
bugs are pretty durable beasts and to squash them it is sometimes useful
to have a core dump. This option enables core dumps unless the Bad Thing
happened before the option parsing.
- --debug-no-chain-validation
- This is actually not a debugging option but only useful as
such. It lets gpgsm bypass all certificate chain validation checks.
- --debug-ignore-expiration
- This is actually not a debugging option but only useful as
such. It lets gpgsm ignore all notAfter dates, this is used by the
regression tests.
- --passphrase-fd n
- Read the passphrase from file descriptor n. Only the
first line will be read from file descriptor n. If you use 0 for
n, the passphrase will be read from STDIN. This can only be used if
only one passphrase is supplied.
Note that this passphrase is only used if the option --batch has also
been given.
- --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.
- --request-origin origin
- Tell gpgsm 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.
- --no-common-certs-import
- Suppress the import of common certificates on keybox
creation.
All the long options may also be given in the configuration file after stripping
off the two leading dashes.
There are different ways to specify a user ID to GnuPG. Some of them are only
valid for
gpg others are only good for
gpgsm. Here is the entire
list of ways to specify a key:
- By key Id.
- This format is deduced from the length of the string and
its content or 0x prefix. The key Id of an X.509 certificate are
the low 64 bits of its SHA-1 fingerprint. The use of key Ids is just a
shortcut, for all automated processing the fingerprint should be used.
When using gpg an exclamation mark (!) may be appended to force using
the specified primary or secondary key and not to try and calculate which
primary or secondary key to use.
The last four lines of the example give the key ID in their long form as
internally used by the OpenPGP protocol. You can see the long key ID using
the option --with-colons.
234567C4
0F34E556E
01347A56A
0xAB123456
234AABBCC34567C4
0F323456784E56EAB
01AB3FED1347A5612
0x234AABBCC34567C4
- By fingerprint.
- This format is deduced from the length of the string and
its content or the 0x prefix. Note, that only the 20 byte version
fingerprint is available with gpgsm (i.e. the SHA-1 hash of the
certificate).
When using gpg an exclamation mark (!) may be appended to force using
the specified primary or secondary key and not to try and calculate which
primary or secondary key to use.
The best way to specify a key Id is by using the fingerprint. This avoids
any ambiguities in case that there are duplicated key IDs.
1234343434343434C434343434343434
123434343434343C3434343434343734349A3434
0E12343434343434343434EAB3484343434343434
0xE12343434343434343434EAB3484343434343434
gpgsm also accepts colons between each pair of hexadecimal digits because
this is the de-facto standard on how to present X.509 fingerprints.
gpg
also allows the use of the space separated SHA-1 fingerprint as printed by the
key listing commands.
- By exact match on OpenPGP user ID.
- This is denoted by a leading equal sign. It does not make
sense for X.509 certificates.
- By exact match on an email address.
- This is indicated by enclosing the email address in the
usual way with left and right angles.
- By partial match on an email address.
- This is indicated by prefixing the search string with an
@. This uses a substring search but considers only the mail address
(i.e. inside the angle brackets).
- By exact match on the subject's DN.
- This is indicated by a leading slash, directly followed by
the RFC-2253 encoded DN of the subject. Note that you can't use the string
printed by gpgsm --list-keys because that one has been reordered
and modified for better readability; use --with-colons to print the
raw (but standard escaped) RFC-2253 string.
/CN=Heinrich Heine,O=Poets,L=Paris,C=FR
- By exact match on the issuer's DN.
- This is indicated by a leading hash mark, directly followed
by a slash and then directly followed by the RFC-2253 encoded DN of the
issuer. This should return the Root cert of the issuer. See note above.
#/CN=Root Cert,O=Poets,L=Paris,C=FR
- By exact match on serial number and issuer's
DN.
- This is indicated by a hash mark, followed by the
hexadecimal representation of the serial number, then followed by a slash
and the RFC-2253 encoded DN of the issuer. See note above.
#4F03/CN=Root Cert,O=Poets,L=Paris,C=FR
- By keygrip.
- This is indicated by an ampersand followed by the 40 hex
digits of a keygrip. gpgsm prints the keygrip when using the
command --dump-cert.
&D75F22C3F86E355877348498CDC92BD21010A480
- By substring match.
- This is the default mode but applications may want to
explicitly indicate this by putting the asterisk in front. Match is not
case sensitive.
- . and + prefixes
- These prefixes are reserved for looking up mails anchored
at the end and for a word search mode. They are not yet implemented and
using them is undefined.
Please note that we have reused the hash mark identifier which was used in
old GnuPG versions to indicate the so called local-id. It is not anymore
used and there should be no conflict when used with X.509 stuff.
Using the RFC-2253 format of DNs has the drawback that it is not possible to
map them back to the original encoding, however we don't have to do this
because our key database stores this encoding as meta data.
There are a few configuration files to control certain aspects of
gpgsm's
operation. Unless noted, they are expected in the current home directory (see:
[option --homedir]).
- gpgsm.conf
- This is the standard configuration file read by
gpgsm on startup. It may contain any valid long option; the leading
two dashes may not be entered and the option may not be abbreviated. This
default name may be changed on the command line (see: [gpgsm-option
--options]). You should backup this file.
- policies.txt
- This is a list of allowed CA policies. This file should
list the object identifiers of the policies line by line. Empty lines and
lines starting with a hash mark are ignored. Policies missing in this file
and not marked as critical in the certificate will print only a warning;
certificates with policies marked as critical and not listed in this file
will fail the signature verification. You should backup this file.
For example, to allow only the policy 2.289.9.9, the file should look like
this:
# Allowed policies
2.289.9.9
- qualified.txt
- This is the list of root certificates used for qualified
certificates. They are defined as certificates capable of creating legally
binding signatures in the same way as handwritten signatures are. Comments
start with a hash mark and empty lines are ignored. Lines do have a length
limit but this is not a serious limitation as the format of the entries is
fixed and checked by gpgsm: A non-comment line starts with optional
whitespace, followed by exactly 40 hex characters, white space and a
lowercased 2 letter country code. Additional data delimited with by a
white space is current ignored but might late be used for other purposes.
Note that even if a certificate is listed in this file, this does not mean
that the certificate is trusted; in general the certificates listed in
this file need to be listed also in ‘ trustlist.txt’.
This is a global file an installed in the data directory (e.g. ‘
/usr/share/gnupg/qualified.txt’). GnuPG installs a suitable
file with root certificates as used in Germany. As new Root-CA
certificates may be issued over time, these entries may need to be
updated; new distributions of this software should come with an updated
list but it is still the responsibility of the Administrator to check that
this list is correct.
Every time gpgsm uses a certificate for signing or verification this
file will be consulted to check whether the certificate under question has
ultimately been issued by one of these CAs. If this is the case the user
will be informed that the verified signature represents a legally binding
(``qualified'') signature. When creating a signature using such a
certificate an extra prompt will be issued to let the user confirm that
such a legally binding signature shall really be created.
Because this software has not yet been approved for use with such
certificates, appropriate notices will be shown to indicate this fact.
- help.txt
- This is plain text file with a few help entries used with
pinentry as well as a large list of help items for gpg and
gpgsm. The standard file has English help texts; to install
localized versions use filenames like ‘ help.LL.txt’
with LL denoting the locale. GnuPG comes with a set of predefined help
files in the data directory (e.g. ‘
/usr/share/gnupg/gnupg/help.de.txt’) and allows overriding
of any help item by help files stored in the system configuration
directory (e.g. ‘ /etc/gnupg/help.de.txt’). For a
reference of the help file's syntax, please see the installed ‘
help.txt’ file.
- com-certs.pem
- This file is a collection of common certificates used to
populated a newly created ‘ pubring.kbx’. An
administrator may replace this file with a custom one. The format is a
concatenation of PEM encoded X.509 certificates. This global file is
installed in the data directory (e.g. ‘
/usr/share/gnupg/com-certs.pem’).
Note that on larger installations, it is useful to put predefined files into the
directory ‘
/etc/skel/.gnupg/’ so that newly created
users start up with a working configuration. For existing users a small helper
script is provided to create these files (see: [addgnupghome]).
For internal purposes
gpgsm creates and maintains a few other files; they
all live in the current home directory (see: [option --homedir]). Only
gpgsm may modify these files.
- pubring.kbx
- This a database file storing the certificates as well as
meta information. For debugging purposes the tool kbxutil may be
used to show the internal structure of this file. You should backup this
file.
- random_seed
- This content of this file is used to maintain the internal
state of the random number generator across invocations. The same file is
used by other programs of this software too.
- S.gpg-agent
- If this file exists gpgsm will first try to connect
to this socket for accessing gpg-agent before starting a new
gpg-agent instance. Under Windows this socket (which in reality be
a plain file describing a regular TCP listening port) is the standard way
of connecting the gpg-agent.
gpg2(1),
gpg-agent(1)
The full documentation for this tool is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If GnuPG
and the info program are properly installed at your site, the command
should give you access to the complete manual including a menu structure and an
index.