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GPG-AGENT(1)                 GNU Privacy Guard 2.4                 GPG-AGENT(1)

NAME
       gpg-agent - Secret key management for GnuPG

SYNOPSIS
       gpg-agent [--homedir dir] [--options file] [options]
       gpg-agent [--homedir dir] [--options file] [options] --server
       gpg-agent  [--homedir  dir]  [--options  file]  [options] --daemon [com-
       mand_line]

DESCRIPTION
       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  out-
       put 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/bin/pinentry-gtk’) to the expected one (e.g. ‘/usr/bin/pinentry’).

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  de-
              fault 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 con-
              sole 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.

       --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 deprecated and not
              supported on Windows.

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

              In --supervised mode, different file descriptors can be  provided
              for  use  as  different socket types (e.g. ssh, extra) as long as
              they are identified in the  environment  variable  LISTEN_FDNAMES
              (see sd_listen_fds(3) on some Linux distributions for more infor-
              mation on this convention).

OPTIONS
       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 rec-
              ognized 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  en-
              try 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  con-
              sidered, 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 in-
              teraction.

       --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 spec-
       ified  and may change with newer releases of this program. They are how-
       ever 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  behav-
              ior 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 at-
              tach 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 re-
              quest down to standard random quality.  It is only used for test-
              ing 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 pack-
              age.  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 --de-
              bug 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  run-
              ning 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 de-
              fault is --no-grab.

       --log-file file
              Append  all logging output to file.  This is very helpful in see-
              ing 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\Soft-
              ware\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  in-
              advertently accept Root-CA keys.

       --no-user-trustlist
              Entirely  ignore the user trust list and consider only the global
              trustlist (‘/etc/gnupg/trustlist.txt’).  This implies the [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 config-
              uration directory (‘/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  con-
              trolled  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  em-
              ploys  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 op-
              tion  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.  Note that a cached passphrase may not be  evicted
              immediately  from memory if no client requests a cache operation.
              This is due to an internal housekeeping function  which  is  only
              run every few seconds.

       --default-cache-ttl-ssh n
              Set  the  time a cache entry used for SSH keys is valid to n sec-
              onds.  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 ac-
              cessed 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-pre-
              set-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 en-
              tering 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 (‘/etc/gnupg’).  The default is not to use any  pattern
              file.  The second version of this option is only used when creat-
              ing  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  gen-
              erated  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  installa-
              tion  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 in-
              stallation 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  op-
              tions  have  no  more  effect.  The command gpg-agent --use-stan-
              dard-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 pinen-
              try to pop up at the tty or display you started the agent.

       --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 lo-
              cal machine.  A gpg running on the remote machine may  then  con-
              nect  to  the local gpg-agent and use its private keys.  This en-
              ables decrypting or signing data on a remote machine without  ex-
              posing 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 op-
              tion  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 en-
              abled using the the option enable-win32-openssh-support.  For us-
              ing 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 neces-
              sary for decrypting the stored key.  Since the ssh-agent protocol
              does not contain a mechanism for telling the agent on which  dis-
              play/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 pre-
                     sented in the
                           order they appear in this file.  Note that the  ssh-
                     control 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  pre-
              fixes  are allowed.  For an heavy loaded gpg-agent with many con-
              current 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  com-
              piled-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 de-
              fault.  The auto-calibration computes a count which  requires  by
              default 100ms to mangle a given passphrase.  See also --s2k-cali-
              bration.

              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

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

FILES
       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
       (see: [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 abbre-
              viated.
                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 (see: [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:

                  .RS 2
                # 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
                .fi

       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 [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. ‘/etc/gnupg/trustlist.txt’).
       This global list is also used if the local list is not available;
       the [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  Relax checking of some root certificate requirements.  As of now this
                     flag allows the use of root certificates with a missing basicConstraints
                     attribute (despite that it is a MUST for CA certificates) and disables
                     CRL checking for the root certificate.

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

              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.

              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 (see: [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 ‘/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 (see: [addgnupghome]).

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,  pinen-
              try-program,      pinentry-invisible-char,     default-cache-ttl,
              max-cache-ttl, ignore-cache-for-signing, s2k-count,  no-allow-ex-
              ternal-cache,  allow-emacs-pinentry,  no-allow-mark-trusted, dis-
              able-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.

SEE ALSO
       gpg(1), gpgsm(1), gpgconf(1), gpg-connect-agent(1), scdaemon(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

         info gnupg

       should give you access to the complete manual including a menu structure
       and an index.

GnuPG 2.4.7                        2024-11-22                      GPG-AGENT(1)

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