1DIRMNGR(8) GNU Privacy Guard 2.2 DIRMNGR(8)
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6 dirmngr - CRL and OCSP daemon
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9 dirmngr [options] command [args]
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11
13 Since version 2.1 of GnuPG, dirmngr takes care of accessing the OpenPGP
14 keyservers. As with previous versions it is also used as a server for
15 managing and downloading certificate revocation lists (CRLs) for X.509
16 certificates, downloading X.509 certificates, and providing access to
17 OCSP providers. Dirmngr is invoked internally by gpg, gpgsm, or via
18 the gpg-connect-agent tool.
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20
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24
26 Commands are not distinguished from options except for the fact that
27 only one command is allowed.
28
29
30 --version
31 Print the program version and licensing information. Note that
32 you cannot abbreviate this command.
33
34
35 --help, -h
36 Print a usage message summarizing the most useful command-line
37 options. Note that you cannot abbreviate this command.
38
39
40 --dump-options
41 Print a list of all available options and commands. Note that
42 you cannot abbreviate this command.
43
44
45 --server
46 Run in server mode and wait for commands on the stdin. The
47 default mode is to create a socket and listen for commands
48 there. This is only used for testing.
49
50
51 --daemon
52 Run in background daemon mode and listen for commands on a
53 socket. This is the way dirmngr is started on demand by the
54 other GnuPG components. To force starting dirmngr it is in gen‐
55 eral best to use gpgconf --launch dirmngr.
56
57
58 --supervised
59 Run in the foreground, sending logs to stderr, and listening on
60 file descriptor 3, which must already be bound to a listening
61 socket. This is useful when running under systemd or other sim‐
62 ilar process supervision schemes. This option is not supported
63 on Windows.
64
65
66 --list-crls
67 List the contents of the CRL cache on stdout. This is probably
68 only useful for debugging purposes.
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70
71 --load-crl file
72 This command requires a filename as additional argument, and it
73 will make Dirmngr try to import the CRL in file into it's cache.
74 Note, that this is only possible if Dirmngr is able to retrieve
75 the CA's certificate directly by its own means. In general it
76 is better to use gpgsm's --call-dirmngr loadcrl filename command
77 so that gpgsm can help dirmngr.
78
79
80 --fetch-crl url
81 This command requires an URL as additional argument, and it will
82 make dirmngr try to retrieve and import the CRL from that url
83 into it's cache. This is mainly useful for debugging purposes.
84 The dirmngr-client provides the same feature for a running dirm‐
85 ngr.
86
87
88 --shutdown
89 This commands shuts down an running instance of Dirmngr. This
90 command has currently no effect.
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92
93 --flush
94 This command removes all CRLs from Dirmngr's cache. Client
95 requests will thus trigger reading of fresh CRLs.
96
97
99 Note that all long options with the exception of --options and --home‐
100 dir may also be given in the configuration file after stripping off the
101 two leading dashes.
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103
104
105 --options file
106 Reads configuration from file instead of from the default per-
107 user configuration file. The default configuration file is
108 named ‘dirmngr.conf’ and expected in the home directory.
109
110
111 --homedir dir
112 Set the name of the home directory to dir. This option is only
113 effective when used on the command line. The default is the
114 directory named ‘.gnupg’ directly below the home directory of
115 the user unless the environment variable GNUPGHOME has been set
116 in which case its value will be used. Many kinds of data are
117 stored within this directory.
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119
120
121 -v
122
123 --verbose
124 Outputs additional information while running. You can increase
125 the verbosity by giving several verbose commands to dirmngr,
126 such as -vv.
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128
129
130 --log-file file
131 Append all logging output to file. This is very helpful in see‐
132 ing what the agent actually does. Use ‘socket://’ to log to
133 socket.
134
135
136 --debug-level level
137 Select the debug level for investigating problems. level may be
138 a numeric value or by a keyword:
139
140
141 none No debugging at all. A value of less than 1 may be used
142 instead of the keyword.
143
144 basic Some basic debug messages. A value between 1 and 2 may
145 be used instead of the keyword.
146
147 advanced
148 More verbose debug messages. A value between 3 and 5 may
149 be used instead of the keyword.
150
151 expert Even more detailed messages. A value between 6 and 8 may
152 be used instead of the keyword.
153
154 guru All of the debug messages you can get. A value greater
155 than 8 may be used instead of the keyword. The creation
156 of hash tracing files is only enabled if the keyword is
157 used.
158
159 How these messages are mapped to the actual debugging flags is not
160 specified and may change with newer releases of this program. They are
161 however carefully selected to best aid in debugging.
162
163
164 --debug flags
165 Set debugging flags. This option is only useful for debugging
166 and its behavior may change with a new release. All flags are
167 or-ed and may be given in C syntax (e.g. 0x0042) or as a comma
168 separated list of flag names. To get a list of all supported
169 flags the single word "help" can be used.
170
171
172 --debug-all
173 Same as --debug=0xffffffff
174
175
176 --tls-debug level
177 Enable debugging of the TLS layer at level. The details of the
178 debug level depend on the used TLS library and are not set in
179 stone.
180
181
182 --debug-wait n
183 When running in server mode, wait n seconds before entering the
184 actual processing loop and print the pid. This gives time to
185 attach a debugger.
186
187
188 --disable-check-own-socket
189 On some platforms dirmngr is able to detect the removal of its
190 socket file and shutdown itself. This option disable this self-
191 test for debugging purposes.
192
193
194 -s
195 --sh
196 -c
197 --csh Format the info output in daemon mode for use with the standard
198 Bourne shell respective the C-shell. The default is to guess it
199 based on the environment variable SHELL which is in almost all
200 cases sufficient.
201
202
203 --force
204 Enabling this option forces loading of expired CRLs; this is
205 only useful for debugging.
206
207
208 --use-tor
209 --no-use-tor
210 The option --use-tor switches Dirmngr and thus GnuPG into ``Tor
211 mode'' to route all network access via Tor (an anonymity net‐
212 work). Certain other features are disabled in this mode. The
213 effect of --use-tor cannot be overridden by any other command or
214 even by reloading dirmngr. The use of --no-use-tor disables the
215 use of Tor. The default is to use Tor if it is available on
216 startup or after reloading dirmngr.
217
218
219 --standard-resolver
220 This option forces the use of the system's standard DNS resolver
221 code. This is mainly used for debugging. Note that on Windows
222 a standard resolver is not used and all DNS access will return
223 the error ``Not Implemented'' if this option is used. Using
224 this together with enabled Tor mode returns the error ``Not
225 Enabled''.
226
227
228 --recursive-resolver
229 When possible use a recursive resolver instead of a stub
230 resolver.
231
232
233 --resolver-timeout n
234 Set the timeout for the DNS resolver to N seconds. The default
235 are 30 seconds.
236
237
238 --connect-timeout n
239
240 --connect-quick-timeout n
241 Set the timeout for HTTP and generic TCP connection attempts to
242 N seconds. The value set with the quick variant is used when
243 the --quick option has been given to certain Assuan commands.
244 The quick value is capped at the value of the regular connect
245 timeout. The default values are 15 and 2 seconds. Note that
246 the timeout values are for each connection attempt; the connec‐
247 tion code will attempt to connect all addresses listed for a
248 server.
249
250
251 --listen-backlog n
252 Set the size of the queue for pending connections. The default
253 is 64.
254
255
256 --allow-version-check
257 Allow Dirmngr to connect to https://versions.gnupg.org to get
258 the list of current software versions. If this option is
259 enabled the list is retrieved in case the local copy does not
260 exist or is older than 5 to 7 days. See the option --query-swdb
261 of the command gpgconf for more details. Note, that regardless
262 of this option a version check can always be triggered using
263 this command:
264
265 gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'loadswdb --force' /bye
266
267
268
269 --keyserver name
270 Use name as your keyserver. This is the server that gpg commu‐
271 nicates with to receive keys, send keys, and search for keys.
272 The format of the name is a URI: `scheme:[//]keyserver‐
273 name[:port]' The scheme is the type of keyserver: "hkp" for the
274 HTTP (or compatible) keyservers, "ldap" for the LDAP keyservers,
275 or "mailto" for the Graff email keyserver. Note that your par‐
276 ticular installation of GnuPG may have other keyserver types
277 available as well. Keyserver schemes are case-insensitive. After
278 the keyserver name, optional keyserver configuration options may
279 be provided. These are the same as the --keyserver-options of
280 gpg, but apply only to this particular keyserver.
281
282 Most keyservers synchronize with each other, so there is gener‐
283 ally no need to send keys to more than one server. The keyserver
284 hkp://keys.gnupg.net uses round robin DNS to give a different
285 keyserver each time you use it.
286
287 If exactly two keyservers are configured and only one is a Tor
288 hidden service (.onion), Dirmngr selects the keyserver to use
289 depending on whether Tor is locally running or not. The check
290 for a running Tor is done for each new connection.
291
292 If no keyserver is explicitly configured, dirmngr will use the
293 built-in default of hkps://hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net.
294
295
296 --nameserver ipaddr
297 In ``Tor mode'' Dirmngr uses a public resolver via Tor to
298 resolve DNS names. If the default public resolver, which is
299 8.8.8.8, shall not be used a different one can be given using
300 this option. Note that a numerical IP address must be given
301 (IPv6 or IPv4) and that no error checking is done for ipaddr.
302
303
304 --disable-ipv4
305
306 --disable-ipv6
307 Disable the use of all IPv4 or IPv6 addresses.
308
309
310 --disable-ldap
311 Entirely disables the use of LDAP.
312
313
314 --disable-http
315 Entirely disables the use of HTTP.
316
317
318 --ignore-http-dp
319 When looking for the location of a CRL, the to be tested cer‐
320 tificate usually contains so called CRL Distribution Point (DP)
321 entries which are URLs describing the way to access the CRL.
322 The first found DP entry is used. With this option all entries
323 using the HTTP scheme are ignored when looking for a suitable
324 DP.
325
326
327 --ignore-ldap-dp
328 This is similar to --ignore-http-dp but ignores entries using
329 the LDAP scheme. Both options may be combined resulting in
330 ignoring DPs entirely.
331
332
333 --ignore-ocsp-service-url
334 Ignore all OCSP URLs contained in the certificate. The effect
335 is to force the use of the default responder.
336
337
338 --honor-http-proxy
339 If the environment variable ‘http_proxy’ has been set, use its
340 value to access HTTP servers.
341
342
343 --http-proxy host[:port]
344 Use host and port to access HTTP servers. The use of this
345 option overrides the environment variable ‘http_proxy’ regard‐
346 less whether --honor-http-proxy has been set.
347
348
349
350 --ldap-proxy host[:port]
351 Use host and port to connect to LDAP servers. If port is omit‐
352 ted, port 389 (standard LDAP port) is used. This overrides any
353 specified host and port part in a LDAP URL and will also be used
354 if host and port have been omitted from the URL.
355
356
357 --only-ldap-proxy
358 Never use anything else but the LDAP "proxy" as configured with
359 --ldap-proxy. Usually dirmngr tries to use other configured
360 LDAP server if the connection using the "proxy" failed.
361
362
363
364 --ldapserverlist-file file
365 Read the list of LDAP servers to consult for CRLs and certifi‐
366 cates from file instead of the default per-user ldap server list
367 file. The default value for file is ‘dirmngr_ldapservers.conf’.
368
369 This server list file contains one LDAP server per line in the
370 format
371
372 hostname:port:username:password:base_dn
373
374 Lines starting with a ‘#’ are comments.
375
376 Note that as usual all strings entered are expected to be UTF-8
377 encoded. Obviously this will lead to problems if the password
378 has originally been encoded as Latin-1. There is no other solu‐
379 tion here than to put such a password in the binary encoding
380 into the file (i.e. non-ascii characters won't show up read‐
381 able). ([The gpgconf tool might be helpful for frontends as it
382 enables editing this configuration file using percent-escaped
383 strings.])
384
385
386
387 --ldaptimeout secs
388 Specify the number of seconds to wait for an LDAP query before
389 timing out. The default are 15 seconds. 0 will never timeout.
390
391
392
393 --add-servers
394 This option makes dirmngr add any servers it discovers when val‐
395 idating certificates against CRLs to the internal list of
396 servers to consult for certificates and CRLs.
397
398 This option is useful when trying to validate a certificate that
399 has a CRL distribution point that points to a server that is not
400 already listed in the ldapserverlist. Dirmngr will always go to
401 this server and try to download the CRL, but chances are high
402 that the certificate used to sign the CRL is located on the same
403 server. So if dirmngr doesn't add that new server to list, it
404 will often not be able to verify the signature of the CRL unless
405 the --add-servers option is used.
406
407 Note: The current version of dirmngr has this option disabled by
408 default.
409
410
411
412 --allow-ocsp
413 This option enables OCSP support if requested by the client.
414
415 OCSP requests are rejected by default because they may violate
416 the privacy of the user; for example it is possible to track the
417 time when a user is reading a mail.
418
419
420
421 --ocsp-responder url
422 Use url as the default OCSP Responder if the certificate does
423 not contain information about an assigned responder. Note, that
424 --ocsp-signer must also be set to a valid certificate.
425
426
427 --ocsp-signer fpr|file
428 Use the certificate with the fingerprint fpr to check the
429 responses of the default OCSP Responder. Alternatively a file‐
430 name can be given in which case the response is expected to be
431 signed by one of the certificates described in that file. Any
432 argument which contains a slash, dot or tilde is considered a
433 filename. Usual filename expansion takes place: A tilde at the
434 start followed by a slash is replaced by the content of ‘HOME’,
435 no slash at start describes a relative filename which will be
436 searched at the home directory. To make sure that the file is
437 searched in the home directory, either prepend the name with
438 "./" or use a name which contains a dot.
439
440 If a response has been signed by a certificate described by
441 these fingerprints no further check upon the validity of this
442 certificate is done.
443
444 The format of the FILE is a list of SHA-1 fingerprint, one per
445 line with optional colons between the bytes. Empty lines and
446 lines prefix with a hash mark are ignored.
447
448
449
450 --ocsp-max-clock-skew n
451 The number of seconds a skew between the OCSP responder and them
452 local clock is accepted. Default is 600 (10 minutes).
453
454
455 --ocsp-max-period n
456 Seconds a response is at maximum considered valid after the time
457 given in the thisUpdate field. Default is 7776000 (90 days).
458
459
460 --ocsp-current-period n
461 The number of seconds an OCSP response is considered valid after
462 the time given in the NEXT_UPDATE datum. Default is 10800 (3
463 hours).
464
465
466
467 --max-replies n
468 Do not return more that n items in one query. The default is
469 10.
470
471
472 --ignore-cert-extension oid
473 Add oid to the list of ignored certificate extensions. The oid
474 is expected to be in dotted decimal form, like 2.5.29.3. This
475 option may be used more than once. Critical flagged certificate
476 extensions matching one of the OIDs in the list are treated as
477 if they are actually handled and thus the certificate won't be
478 rejected due to an unknown critical extension. Use this option
479 with care because extensions are usually flagged as critical for
480 a reason.
481
482
483 --hkp-cacert file
484 Use the root certificates in file for verification of the TLS
485 certificates used with hkps (keyserver access over TLS). If the
486 file is in PEM format a suffix of .pem is expected for file.
487 This option may be given multiple times to add more root cer‐
488 tificates. Tilde expansion is supported.
489
490 If no hkp-cacert directive is present, dirmngr will make a rea‐
491 sonable choice: if the keyserver in question is the special pool
492 hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net, it will use the bundled root cer‐
493 tificate for that pool. Otherwise, it will use the system CAs.
494
495
497 Here is an example on how to show dirmngr's internal table of OpenPGP
498 keyserver addresses. The output is intended for debugging purposes and
499 not part of a defined API.
500
501 gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'keyserver --hosttable' /bye
502
503 To inhibit the use of a particular host you have noticed in one of the
504 keyserver pools, you may use
505
506 gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'keyserver --dead pgpkeys.bnd.de' /bye
507
508 The description of the keyserver command can be printed using
509
510 gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'help keyserver' /bye
511
512
513
514
515
517 Dirmngr makes use of several directories when running in daemon mode:
518 There are a few configuration files whih control the operation of dirm‐
519 ngr. By default they may all be found in the current home directory
520 (see: [option --homedir]).
521
522
523
524 dirmngr.conf
525 This is the standard configuration file read by dirmngr on
526 startup. It may contain any valid long option; the leading two
527 dashes may not be entered and the option may not be abbreviated.
528 This file is also read after a SIGHUP however not all options
529 will actually have an effect. This default name may be changed
530 on the command line (see: [option --options]). You should
531 backup this file.
532
533
534 /etc/gnupg/trusted-certs
535 This directory should be filled with certificates of Root CAs
536 you are trusting in checking the CRLs and signing OCSP
537 Responses.
538
539 Usually these are the same certificates you use with the appli‐
540 cations making use of dirmngr. It is expected that each of
541 these certificate files contain exactly one DER encoded certifi‐
542 cate in a file with the suffix ‘.crt’ or ‘.der’. dirmngr reads
543 those certificates on startup and when given a SIGHUP. Certifi‐
544 cates which are not readable or do not make up a proper X.509
545 certificate are ignored; see the log file for details.
546
547 Applications using dirmngr (e.g. gpgsm) can request these cer‐
548 tificates to complete a trust chain in the same way as with the
549 extra-certs directory (see below).
550
551 Note that for OCSP responses the certificate specified using the
552 option --ocsp-signer is always considered valid to sign OCSP
553 requests.
554
555
556 /etc/gnupg/extra-certs
557 This directory may contain extra certificates which are pre‐
558 loaded into the internal cache on startup. Applications using
559 dirmngr (e.g. gpgsm) can request cached certificates to complete
560 a trust chain. This is convenient in cases you have a couple
561 intermediate CA certificates or certificates usually used to
562 sign OCSP responses. These certificates are first tried before
563 going out to the net to look for them. These certificates must
564 also be DER encoded and suffixed with ‘.crt’ or ‘.der’.
565
566
567 ~/.gnupg/crls.d
568 This directory is used to store cached CRLs. The ‘crls.d’ part
569 will be created by dirmngr if it does not exists but you need to
570 make sure that the upper directory exists.
571
572
573
575 A running dirmngr may be controlled by signals, i.e. using the kill
576 command to send a signal to the process.
577
578 Here is a list of supported signals:
579
580
581
582 SIGHUP This signal flushes all internally cached CRLs as well as any
583 cached certificates. Then the certificate cache is reinitial‐
584 ized as on startup. Options are re-read from the configuration
585 file. Instead of sending this signal it is better to use
586 gpgconf --reload dirmngr
587
588
589 SIGTERM
590 Shuts down the process but waits until all current requests are
591 fulfilled. If the process has received 3 of these signals and
592 requests are still pending, a shutdown is forced. You may also
593 use
594 gpgconf --kill dirmngr
595 instead of this signal
596
597
598 SIGINT Shuts down the process immediately.
599
600
601
602 SIGUSR1
603 This prints some caching statistics to the log file.
604
605
607 gpgsm(1), dirmngr-client(1)
608
609 The full documentation for this tool is maintained as a Texinfo manual.
610 If GnuPG and the info program are properly installed at your site, the
611 command
612
613 info gnupg
614
615 should give you access to the complete manual including a menu struc‐
616 ture and an index.
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622GnuPG 2.2.25 2020-11-23 DIRMNGR(8)