GPGSM(1) GNU Privacy Guard 2.4 GPGSM(1)
NAME
gpgsm - CMS encryption and signing tool
SYNOPSIS
gpgsm [--homedir dir] [--options file] [options] command [args]
DESCRIPTION
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 Ger-
man Sphinx project.
COMMANDS
Commands are not distinguished from options except for the fact that
only one command is allowed.
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.
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 deter-
mined. 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 std-
out. 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. Cur-
rently 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 direc-
tory 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.
How to manage the certificates and keys
--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 cre-
ate 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 hu-
man readability and illegal characters are replaced by safe sub-
stitutes.
--list-secret-keys
-K List all available certificates for which a corresponding a se-
cret 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 se-
cret 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.
--show-certs [files]
This command takes certificate files as input and prints informa-
tion about them in the same format as --dump-cert does. Each
file may either contain a single binary certificate or several
PEM encoded certificates. If no files are given, the input is
taken from stdin.
Please note that the listing format may be changed in future re-
leases and that the option --with-colons has currently no effect.
--keydb-clear-some-cert-flags
This is a debugging aid to reset certain flags in the key data-
base which are used to cache certain certificate statuses. 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 valid-
ity 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 secu-
rity 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 cer-
tificate specified as user_id. Note, that changing the
passphrase/PIN of a smartcard is not yet supported.
OPTIONS
GPGSM features a bunch of options to control the exact behaviour and to
change the default configuration.
How to change the configuration
These options are used to change the configuration and are usually found
in the option file.
--options file
Reads configuration from file instead of from the default per-
user configuration file. The default configuration file is named
‘gpgsm.conf’ and expected in the ‘.gnupg’ directory directly be-
low 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 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 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 and 2.3.2 to
2.3.4 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. The de-
fault name is ‘policies.txt’.
--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 use-
ful on machines where the connection to gpg-agent has been redi-
rected to another machines. If dirmngr is required on the remote
machine, it may be started manually using gpgconf --launch dirm-
ngr.
--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.
--log-time
Prefix all log output with a timestamp even if no log file is
used.
Certificate related options
--enable-policy-checks
--disable-policy-checks
By default policy checks are enabled. These options may be used
to change it.
--enable-crl-checks
--disable-crl-checks
By default the CRL checks are enabled and the DirMngr is used to
check for revoked certificates. The disable option is most use-
ful 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 is-
sued 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 suppress-
ing 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 configura-
tion 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 us-
ing the issuer. This option reverts to what GnuPG did up to ver-
sion 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 ver-
ified the signature. Note that if CRL checking is not disabled
issuer certificates are retrieved in any case using the caIssuers
authorityInfoAccess method.
--validation-model name
This option changes the default validation model. The only pos-
sible values are "shell" (which is the default), "chain" which
forces the use of the chain model and "steed" for a new simpli-
fied 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.
Input and Output
--armor
-a Create PEM encoded output. Default is binary output.
--base64
Create Base-64 encoded output; i.e. PEM without the header lines.
--assume-armor
Assume the input data is PEM encoded. Default is to autodetect
the encoding but this is may fail.
--assume-base64
Assume the input data is plain base-64 encoded.
--assume-binary
Assume the input data is binary encoded.
--input-size-hint n
This option can be used to tell GPGSM the size of the input data
in bytes. n must be a positive base-10 number. It is used by
the --status-fd line ``PROGRESS'' to provide a value for ``to-
tal'' if that is not available by other means.
--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 en-
coded 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. Espe-
cially 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 certifi-
cate.
--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 key-
grip 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.
--no-pretty-dn
By default gpgsm prints distinguished names (DNs) like the Issuer
or Subject in a more readable format (e.g. using a well defined
order of the parts). However, this format can't be used as input
strings. This option reverts printing to standard RFC-2253 for-
mat and thus avoids the need to use --dump-cert or --with-colons
to get the ``real'' name.
How to change how the CMS is created
--include-certs n
Using n of -2 includes all certificate except for the root cert,
-1 includes all certs, 0 does not include any certs, 1 includes
only the signers cert and all other positive values include up to
n certificates starting with the signer cert. The default is -2.
--cipher-algo oid
Use the cipher algorithm with the ASN.1 object identifier oid for
encryption. For convenience the strings 3DES, AES and AES256 may
be used instead of their OIDs. The default is 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 in-
teroperability problems.
Doing things one usually do not want to do
--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 gpgsm 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 ef-
fect at all on Windows.
--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 op-
tion may be used to tell gpgsm to also hash the data using the
algorithm name; this slows processing down a little bit but al-
lows 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 re-
quired 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 ful-
filled. Note that this option has currently an effect only in
"de-vs" mode.
--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 speci-
fied as a fingerprint or a file listing fingerprints. The fin-
gerprint must be given or listed in compact format (no colons or
spaces in between). As of now only SHA-1 fingerprints are al-
lowed. This option can be given multiple times and each finger-
print is checked against the signing key as well as the corre-
sponding 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 gpgsm 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.
--always-trust
Force encryption to the specified certificates without any vali-
dation of the certificate chain. The only requirement is that
the certificate is capable of encryption. Note that this option
is ineffective if --require-compliance is used.
--ignore-cert-with-oid oid
Add oid to the list of OIDs to be checked while reading certifi-
cates from smartcards. The oid is expected to be in dotted deci-
mal 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-com-
pliant certificates or data. The flags are given as a comma sep-
arated 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 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.
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 use-
ful 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 re-
gression 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. Sup-
ported 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.
HOW TO SPECIFY A USER ID
There are different ways to specify a user ID to GnuPG. Some of them
are only valid for gpg others are only good for gpgsm. Here is the en-
tire list of ways to specify a key:
By key Id.
This format is deduced from the length of the string and its con-
tent 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 con-
tent or the 0x prefix. Note, that only the 20 byte version fin-
gerprint is available with gpgsm (i.e. the SHA-1 hash of the cer-
tificate).
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 be-
cause this is the de-facto standard on how to present X.509 finger-
prints. gpg also allows the use of the space separated SHA-1 finger-
print 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.
=Heinrich Heine <heinrichh@uni-duesseldorf.de>
By exact match on an email address.
This is indicated by enclosing the email address in the usual way
with left and right angles.
<heinrichh@uni-duesseldorf.de>
By 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).
@heinrichh
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 re-
ordered 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.
Heine
*Heine
. 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 encod-
ing as meta data.
EXAMPLES
$ gpgsm -er goo@bar.net <plaintext >ciphertext
FILES
There are a few configuration files to control certain aspects of
gpgsm's operation. Unless noted, they are expected in the current home
directory (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 de-
fault name may be changed on the command line (see: [gpgsm-option
--options]). You should backup this file.
common.conf
This is an optional configuration file read by gpgsm on startup.
It may contain options pertaining to all components of GnuPG.
Its current main use is for the "use-keyboxd" option.
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 criti-
cal and not listed in this file will fail the signature verifica-
tion. 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 legacy method to mark root certificates as usable for
qualified certificates. Qualified certificates are capable of
creating legally binding signatures in the same way as handwrit-
ten signatures. The modern method to mark such root certificates
is to use the "qual" flag in the system trustlist.txt; see the
gpg-agent man page for details.
Comments int his file 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, fol-
lowed 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 pur-
poses.
Note that even if a certificate is listed in this file, this does
not mean that the certificate is trusted; in general the certifi-
cates listed in this file need to be listed also in
‘trustlist.txt’. This is a global file an installed in the
sysconf directory (e.g. ‘/etc/gnupg/qualified.txt’).
Every time gpgsm uses a certificate for signing or verification
this file will be consulted to check whether the certificate un-
der question has ultimately been issued by one of these CAs. If
this is the case the user will be informed that the verified sig-
nature 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 pinen-
try as well as a large list of help items for gpg and gpgsm. The
standard file has English help texts; to install localized ver-
sions use filenames like ‘help.LL.txt’ with LL denoting the lo-
cale. 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 in-
stalled ‘help.txt’ file.
com-certs.pem
This file is a collection of common certificates used to popu-
lated a newly created ‘pubring.kbx’. An administrator may re-
place 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 in-
formation. 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.
SEE ALSO
gpg(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
info gnupg
should give you access to the complete manual including a menu structure
and an index.
GnuPG 2.4.7 2024-11-22 GPGSM(1)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Tue Dec 16 04:53:22 CET 2025.