1GPGSM(1) GNU Privacy Guard 2.2 GPGSM(1)
2
6 gpgsm - CMS encryption and signing tool
7
9 gpgsm [--homedir dir] [--options file] [options] command [args]
10
14 gpgsm is a tool similar to gpg to provide digital encryption and sign‐
15 ing services on X.509 certificates and the CMS protocol. It is mainly
16 used as a backend for S/MIME mail processing. gpgsm includes a full
17 featured certificate management and complies with all rules defined for
18 the German Sphinx project.
19
25 Commands are not distinguished from options except for the fact that
26 only one command is allowed.
27 Commands not specific to the function
33 --version
37 Print the program version and licensing information. Note that
38 you cannot abbreviate this command.
39 --help, -h
42 Print a usage message summarizing the most useful command-line
43 options. Note that you cannot abbreviate this command.
44 --warranty
47 Print warranty information. Note that you cannot abbreviate
48 this command.
49 --dump-options
52 Print a list of all available options and commands. Note that
53 you cannot abbreviate this command.
54 Commands to select the type of operation
56 --encrypt
60 Perform an encryption. The keys the data is encrypted to must
61 be set using the option --recipient.
62 --decrypt
65 Perform a decryption; the type of input is automatically deter‐
66 mined. It may either be in binary form or PEM encoded; auto‐
67 matic determination of base-64 encoding is not done.
68 --sign Create a digital signature. The key used is either the fist one
71 found in the keybox or those set with the --local-user option.
72 --verify
75 Check a signature file for validity. Depending on the arguments
76 a detached signature may also be checked.
77 --server
80 Run in server mode and wait for commands on the stdin.
81 --call-dirmngr command [args]
84 Behave as a Dirmngr client issuing the request command with the
85 optional list of args. The output of the Dirmngr is printed
86 stdout. Please note that file names given as arguments should
87 have an absolute file name (i.e. commencing with /) because they
88 are passed verbatim to the Dirmngr and the working directory of
89 the Dirmngr might not be the same as the one of this client.
90 Currently it is not possible to pass data via stdin to the Dirm‐
91 ngr. command should not contain spaces.
92 This is command is required for certain maintaining tasks of the
94 dirmngr where a dirmngr must be able to call back to gpgsm. See
95 the Dirmngr manual for details.
96 --call-protect-tool arguments
99 Certain maintenance operations are done by an external program
100 call gpg-protect-tool; this is usually not installed in a direc‐
101 tory listed in the PATH variable. This command provides a sim‐
102 ple wrapper to access this tool. arguments are passed verbatim
103 to this command; use ‘--help’ to get a list of supported opera‐
104 tions.
105 How to manage the certificates and keys
109 --generate-key
113 --gen-key
114 This command allows the creation of a certificate signing re‐
115 quest or a self-signed certificate. It is commonly used along
116 with the --output option to save the created CSR or certificate
117 into a file. If used with the --batch a parameter file is used
118 to create the CSR or certificate and it is further possible to
119 create non-self-signed certificates.
120 --list-keys
123 -k List all available certificates stored in the local key data‐
124 base. Note that the displayed data might be reformatted for
125 better human readability and illegal characters are replaced by
126 safe substitutes.
127 --list-secret-keys
130 -K List all available certificates for which a corresponding a se‐
131 cret key is available.
132 --list-external-keys pattern
135 List certificates matching pattern using an external server.
136 This utilizes the dirmngr service.
137 --list-chain
140 Same as --list-keys but also prints all keys making up the
141 chain.
142 --dump-cert
146 --dump-keys
147 List all available certificates stored in the local key database
148 using a format useful mainly for debugging.
149 --dump-chain
152 Same as --dump-keys but also prints all keys making up the
153 chain.
154 --dump-secret-keys
157 List all available certificates for which a corresponding a se‐
158 cret key is available using a format useful mainly for debug‐
159 ging.
160 --dump-external-keys pattern
163 List certificates matching pattern using an external server.
164 This utilizes the dirmngr service. It uses a format useful
165 mainly for debugging.
166 --keydb-clear-some-cert-flags
169 This is a debugging aid to reset certain flags in the key data‐
170 base which are used to cache certain certificate stati. It is
171 especially useful if a bad CRL or a weird running OCSP responder
172 did accidentally revoke certificate. There is no security issue
173 with this command because gpgsm always make sure that the valid‐
174 ity of a certificate is checked right before it is used.
175 --delete-keys pattern
178 Delete the keys matching pattern. Note that there is no command
179 to delete the secret part of the key directly. In case you need
180 to do this, you should run the command gpgsm --dump-secret-keys
181 KEYID before you delete the key, copy the string of hex-digits
182 in the ``keygrip'' line and delete the file consisting of these
183 hex-digits and the suffix .key from the ‘private-keys-v1.d’ di‐
184 rectory below our GnuPG home directory (usually ‘~/.gnupg’).
185 --export [pattern]
188 Export all certificates stored in the Keybox or those specified
189 by the optional pattern. Those pattern consist of a list of user
190 ids (see: [how-to-specify-a-user-id]). When used along with the
191 --armor option a few informational lines are prepended before
192 each block. There is one limitation: As there is no commonly
193 agreed upon way to pack more than one certificate into an ASN.1
194 structure, the binary export (i.e. without using armor) works
195 only for the export of one certificate. Thus it is required to
196 specify a pattern which yields exactly one certificate.
197 Ephemeral certificate are only exported if all pattern are given
198 as fingerprints or keygrips.
199 --export-secret-key-p12 key-id
202 Export the private key and the certificate identified by key-id
203 using the PKCS#12 format. When used with the --armor option a
204 few informational lines are prepended to the output. Note, that
205 the PKCS#12 format is not very secure and proper transport secu‐
206 rity should be used to convey the exported key. (See: [option
207 --p12-charset].)
208 --export-secret-key-p8 key-id
211 --export-secret-key-raw key-id
212 Export the private key of the certificate identified by key-id
213 with any encryption stripped. The ...-raw command exports in
214 PKCS#1 format; the ...-p8 command exports in PKCS#8 format.
215 When used with the --armor option a few informational lines are
216 prepended to the output. These commands are useful to prepare a
217 key for use on a TLS server.
218 --import [files]
221 Import the certificates from the PEM or binary encoded files as
222 well as from signed-only messages. This command may also be
223 used to import a secret key from a PKCS#12 file.
224 --learn-card
227 Read information about the private keys from the smartcard and
228 import the certificates from there. This command utilizes the
229 gpg-agent and in turn the scdaemon.
230 --change-passphrase user_id
233 --passwd user_id
234 Change the passphrase of the private key belonging to the cer‐
235 tificate specified as user_id. Note, that changing the
236 passphrase/PIN of a smartcard is not yet supported.
237
240 GPGSM features a bunch of options to control the exact behaviour and to
241 change the default configuration.
242 How to change the configuration
248 These options are used to change the configuration and are usually
251 found in the option file.
252 --options file
257 Reads configuration from file instead of from the default per-
258 user configuration file. The default configuration file is
259 named ‘gpgsm.conf’ and expected in the ‘.gnupg’ directory di‐
260 rectly below the home directory of the user.
261 --homedir dir
264 Set the name of the home directory to dir. If this option is not
265 used, the home directory defaults to ‘~/.gnupg’. It is only
266 recognized when given on the command line. It also overrides
267 any home directory stated through the environment variable
268 ‘GNUPGHOME’ or (on Windows systems) by means of the Registry en‐
269 try HKCU\Software\GNU\GnuPG:HomeDir.
270 On Windows systems it is possible to install GnuPG as a portable
272 application. In this case only this command line option is con‐
273 sidered, all other ways to set a home directory are ignored.
274 To install GnuPG as a portable application under Windows, create
276 an empty file named ‘gpgconf.ctl’ in the same directory as the
277 tool ‘gpgconf.exe’. The root of the installation is then that
278 directory; or, if ‘gpgconf.exe’ has been installed directly be‐
279 low a directory named ‘bin’, its parent directory. You also
280 need to make sure that the following directories exist and are
281 writable: ‘ROOT/home’ for the GnuPG home and
282 ‘ROOT/var/cache/gnupg’ for internal cache files.
283 -v
287 --verbose
289 Outputs additional information while running. You can increase
290 the verbosity by giving several verbose commands to gpgsm, such
291 as ‘-vv’.
292 --policy-file filename
295 Change the default name of the policy file to filename.
296 --agent-program file
299 Specify an agent program to be used for secret key operations.
300 The default value is determined by running the command gpgconf.
301 Note that the pipe symbol (|) is used for a regression test
302 suite hack and may thus not be used in the file name.
303 --dirmngr-program file
306 Specify a dirmngr program to be used for CRL checks. The de‐
307 fault value is ‘/usr/bin/dirmngr’.
308 --prefer-system-dirmngr
311 This option is obsolete and ignored.
312 --disable-dirmngr
315 Entirely disable the use of the Dirmngr.
316 --no-autostart
319 Do not start the gpg-agent or the dirmngr if it has not yet been
320 started and its service is required. This option is mostly use‐
321 ful on machines where the connection to gpg-agent has been redi‐
322 rected to another machines. If dirmngr is required on the re‐
323 mote machine, it may be started manually using gpgconf --launch
324 dirmngr.
325 --no-secmem-warning
328 Do not print a warning when the so called "secure memory" cannot
329 be used.
330 --log-file file
333 When running in server mode, append all logging output to file.
334 Use ‘socket://’ to log to socket.
335 Certificate related options
338 --enable-policy-checks
343 --disable-policy-checks
344 By default policy checks are enabled. These options may be used
345 to change it.
346 --enable-crl-checks
349 --disable-crl-checks
350 By default the CRL checks are enabled and the DirMngr is used to
351 check for revoked certificates. The disable option is most use‐
352 ful with an off-line network connection to suppress this check
353 and also to avoid that new certificates introduce a web bug by
354 including a certificate specific CRL DP. The disable option
355 also disables an issuer certificate lookup via the authorityIn‐
356 foAccess property of the certificate; the --enable-issuer-key-
357 retrieve can be used to make use of that property anyway.
358 --enable-trusted-cert-crl-check
361 --disable-trusted-cert-crl-check
362 By default the CRL for trusted root certificates are checked
363 like for any other certificates. This allows a CA to revoke its
364 own certificates voluntary without the need of putting all ever
365 issued certificates into a CRL. The disable option may be used
366 to switch this extra check off. Due to the caching done by the
367 Dirmngr, there will not be any noticeable performance gain.
368 Note, that this also disables possible OCSP checks for trusted
369 root certificates. A more specific way of disabling this check
370 is by adding the ``relax'' keyword to the root CA line of the
371 ‘trustlist.txt’
372 --force-crl-refresh
376 Tell the dirmngr to reload the CRL for each request. For better
377 performance, the dirmngr will actually optimize this by sup‐
378 pressing the loading for short time intervals (e.g. 30 minutes).
379 This option is useful to make sure that a fresh CRL is available
380 for certificates hold in the keybox. The suggested way of doing
381 this is by using it along with the option --with-validation for
382 a key listing command. This option should not be used in a con‐
383 figuration file.
384 --enable-issuer-based-crl-check
387 Run a CRL check even for certificates which do not have any CRL
388 distribution point. This requires that a suitable LDAP server
389 has been configured in Dirmngr and that the CRL can be found us‐
390 ing the issuer. This option reverts to what GnuPG did up to
391 version 2.2.20. This option is in general not useful.
392 --enable-ocsp
395 --disable-ocsp
396 By default OCSP checks are disabled. The enable option may be
397 used to enable OCSP checks via Dirmngr. If CRL checks are also
398 enabled, CRLs will be used as a fallback if for some reason an
399 OCSP request will not succeed. Note, that you have to allow
400 OCSP requests in Dirmngr's configuration too (option --allow-
401 ocsp) and configure Dirmngr properly. If you do not do so you
402 will get the error code ‘Not supported’.
403 --auto-issuer-key-retrieve
406 If a required certificate is missing while validating the chain
407 of certificates, try to load that certificate from an external
408 location. This usually means that Dirmngr is employed to search
409 for the certificate. Note that this option makes a "web bug"
410 like behavior possible. LDAP server operators can see which
411 keys you request, so by sending you a message signed by a brand
412 new key (which you naturally will not have on your local key‐
413 box), the operator can tell both your IP address and the time
414 when you verified the signature.
415 --validation-model name
420 This option changes the default validation model. The only pos‐
421 sible values are "shell" (which is the default), "chain" which
422 forces the use of the chain model and "steed" for a new simpli‐
423 fied model. The chain model is also used if an option in the
424 ‘trustlist.txt’ or an attribute of the certificate requests it.
425 However the standard model (shell) is in that case always tried
426 first.
427 --ignore-cert-extension oid
430 Add oid to the list of ignored certificate extensions. The oid
431 is expected to be in dotted decimal form, like 2.5.29.3. This
432 option may be used more than once. Critical flagged certificate
433 extensions matching one of the OIDs in the list are treated as
434 if they are actually handled and thus the certificate will not
435 be rejected due to an unknown critical extension. Use this op‐
436 tion with care because extensions are usually flagged as criti‐
437 cal for a reason.
438 Input and Output
441 --armor
445 -a Create PEM encoded output. Default is binary output.
446 --base64
449 Create Base-64 encoded output; i.e. PEM without the header
450 lines.
451 --assume-armor
454 Assume the input data is PEM encoded. Default is to autodetect
455 the encoding but this is may fail.
456 --assume-base64
459 Assume the input data is plain base-64 encoded.
460 --assume-binary
463 Assume the input data is binary encoded.
464 --p12-charset name
468 gpgsm uses the UTF-8 encoding when encoding passphrases for
469 PKCS#12 files. This option may be used to force the passphrase
470 to be encoded in the specified encoding name. This is useful if
471 the application used to import the key uses a different encoding
472 and thus will not be able to import a file generated by gpgsm.
473 Commonly used values for name are Latin1 and CP850. Note that
474 gpgsm itself automagically imports any file with a passphrase
475 encoded to the most commonly used encodings.
476 --default-key user_id
480 Use user_id as the standard key for signing. This key is used
481 if no other key has been defined as a signing key. Note, that
482 the first --local-users option also sets this key if it has not
483 yet been set; however --default-key always overrides this.
484 --local-user user_id
488 -u user_id
490 Set the user(s) to be used for signing. The default is the
491 first secret key found in the database.
492 --recipient name
496 -r Encrypt to the user id name. There are several ways a user id
497 may be given (see: [how-to-specify-a-user-id]).
498 --output file
502 -o file
503 Write output to file. The default is to write it to stdout.
504 --with-key-data
509 Displays extra information with the --list-keys commands. Espe‐
510 cially a line tagged grp is printed which tells you the keygrip
511 of a key. This string is for example used as the file name of
512 the secret key. Implies --with-colons.
513 --with-validation
517 When doing a key listing, do a full validation check for each
518 key and print the result. This is usually a slow operation be‐
519 cause it requires a CRL lookup and other operations.
520 When used along with --import, a validation of the certificate
522 to import is done and only imported if it succeeds the test.
523 Note that this does not affect an already available certificate
524 in the DB. This option is therefore useful to simply verify a
525 certificate.
526 --with-md5-fingerprint
530 For standard key listings, also print the MD5 fingerprint of the
531 certificate.
532 --with-keygrip
535 Include the keygrip in standard key listings. Note that the
536 keygrip is always listed in --with-colons mode.
537 --with-secret
540 Include info about the presence of a secret key in public key
541 listings done with --with-colons.
542 How to change how the CMS is created
545 --include-certs n
549 Using n of -2 includes all certificate except for the root cert,
550 -1 includes all certs, 0 does not include any certs, 1 includes
551 only the signers cert and all other positive values include up
552 to n certificates starting with the signer cert. The default is
553 -2.
554 --cipher-algo oid
557 Use the cipher algorithm with the ASN.1 object identifier oid
558 for encryption. For convenience the strings 3DES, AES and
559 AES256 may be used instead of their OIDs. The default is AES
560 (2.16.840.1.101.3.4.1.2).
561 --digest-algo name
564 Use name as the message digest algorithm. Usually this algo‐
565 rithm is deduced from the respective signing certificate. This
566 option forces the use of the given algorithm and may lead to se‐
567 vere interoperability problems.
568 Doing things one usually do not want to do
571 --extra-digest-algo name
577 Sometimes signatures are broken in that they announce a differ‐
578 ent digest algorithm than actually used. gpgsm uses a one-pass
579 data processing model and thus needs to rely on the announced
580 digest algorithms to properly hash the data. As a workaround
581 this option may be used to tell gpgsm to also hash the data us‐
582 ing the algorithm name; this slows processing down a little bit
583 but allows verification of such broken signatures. If gpgsm
584 prints an error like ``digest algo 8 has not been enabled'' you
585 may want to try this option, with ‘SHA256’ for name.
586 --faked-system-time epoch
590 This option is only useful for testing; it sets the system time
591 back or forth to epoch which is the number of seconds elapsed
592 since the year 1970. Alternatively epoch may be given as a full
593 ISO time string (e.g. "20070924T154812").
594 --with-ephemeral-keys
597 Include ephemeral flagged keys in the output of key listings.
598 Note that they are included anyway if the key specification for
599 a listing is given as fingerprint or keygrip.
600 --debug-level level
603 Select the debug level for investigating problems. level may be
604 a numeric value or by a keyword:
605 none No debugging at all. A value of less than 1 may be used
608 instead of the keyword.
609 basic Some basic debug messages. A value between 1 and 2 may
611 be used instead of the keyword.
612 advanced
614 More verbose debug messages. A value between 3 and 5 may
615 be used instead of the keyword.
616 expert Even more detailed messages. A value between 6 and 8 may
618 be used instead of the keyword.
619 guru All of the debug messages you can get. A value greater
621 than 8 may be used instead of the keyword. The creation
622 of hash tracing files is only enabled if the keyword is
623 used.
624 How these messages are mapped to the actual debugging flags is not
626 specified and may change with newer releases of this program. They are
627 however carefully selected to best aid in debugging.
628 --debug flags
631 This option is only useful for debugging and the behaviour may
632 change at any time without notice; using --debug-levels is the
633 preferred method to select the debug verbosity. FLAGS are bit
634 encoded and may be given in usual C-Syntax. The currently de‐
635 fined bits are:
636 0 (1) X.509 or OpenPGP protocol related data
639 1 (2) values of big number integers
641 2 (4) low level crypto operations
643 5 (32) memory allocation
645 6 (64) caching
647 7 (128)
649 show memory statistics
650 9 (512)
652 write hashed data to files named dbgmd-000*
653 10 (1024)
655 trace Assuan protocol
656 Note, that all flags set using this option may get overridden by --de‐
658 bug-level.
659 --debug-all
662 Same as --debug=0xffffffff
663 --debug-allow-core-dump
666 Usually gpgsm tries to avoid dumping core by well written code
667 and by disabling core dumps for security reasons. However, bugs
668 are pretty durable beasts and to squash them it is sometimes
669 useful to have a core dump. This option enables core dumps un‐
670 less the Bad Thing happened before the option parsing.
671 --debug-no-chain-validation
674 This is actually not a debugging option but only useful as such.
675 It lets gpgsm bypass all certificate chain validation checks.
676 --debug-ignore-expiration
679 This is actually not a debugging option but only useful as such.
680 It lets gpgsm ignore all notAfter dates, this is used by the re‐
681 gression tests.
682 --passphrase-fd n
685 Read the passphrase from file descriptor n. Only the first line
686 will be read from file descriptor n. If you use 0 for n, the
687 passphrase will be read from STDIN. This can only be used if
688 only one passphrase is supplied.
689 Note that this passphrase is only used if the option --batch has
691 also been given.
692 --pinentry-mode mode
695 Set the pinentry mode to mode. Allowed values for mode are:
696 default
698 Use the default of the agent, which is ask.
699 ask Force the use of the Pinentry.
701 cancel Emulate use of Pinentry's cancel button.
703 error Return a Pinentry error (``No Pinentry'').
705 loopback
707 Redirect Pinentry queries to the caller. Note that in
708 contrast to Pinentry the user is not prompted again if he
709 enters a bad password.
710 --request-origin origin
713 Tell gpgsm to assume that the operation ultimately originated at
714 origin. Depending on the origin certain restrictions are ap‐
715 plied and the Pinentry may include an extra note on the origin.
716 Supported values for origin are: local which is the default, re‐
717 mote to indicate a remote origin or browser for an operation re‐
718 quested by a web browser.
719 --no-common-certs-import
722 Suppress the import of common certificates on keybox creation.
723 All the long options may also be given in the configuration file after
726 stripping off the two leading dashes.
727
731 There are different ways to specify a user ID to GnuPG. Some of them
732 are only valid for gpg others are only good for gpgsm. Here is the en‐
733 tire list of ways to specify a key:
734 By key Id.
738 This format is deduced from the length of the string and its
739 content or 0x prefix. The key Id of an X.509 certificate are the
740 low 64 bits of its SHA-1 fingerprint. The use of key Ids is
741 just a shortcut, for all automated processing the fingerprint
742 should be used.
743 When using gpg an exclamation mark (!) may be appended to force
745 using the specified primary or secondary key and not to try and
746 calculate which primary or secondary key to use.
747 The last four lines of the example give the key ID in their long
749 form as internally used by the OpenPGP protocol. You can see the
750 long key ID using the option --with-colons.
751 234567C4
753 0F34E556E
754 01347A56A
755 0xAB123456
756 234AABBCC34567C4
758 0F323456784E56EAB
759 01AB3FED1347A5612
760 0x234AABBCC34567C4
761 By fingerprint.
766 This format is deduced from the length of the string and its
767 content or the 0x prefix. Note, that only the 20 byte version
768 fingerprint is available with gpgsm (i.e. the SHA-1 hash of the
769 certificate).
770 When using gpg an exclamation mark (!) may be appended to force
772 using the specified primary or secondary key and not to try and
773 calculate which primary or secondary key to use.
774 The best way to specify a key Id is by using the fingerprint.
776 This avoids any ambiguities in case that there are duplicated
777 key IDs.
778 1234343434343434C434343434343434
780 123434343434343C3434343434343734349A3434
781 0E12343434343434343434EAB3484343434343434
782 0xE12343434343434343434EAB3484343434343434
783 gpgsm also accepts colons between each pair of hexadecimal digits be‐
786 cause this is the de-facto standard on how to present X.509 finger‐
787 prints. gpg also allows the use of the space separated SHA-1 finger‐
788 print as printed by the key listing commands.
789 By exact match on OpenPGP user ID.
792 This is denoted by a leading equal sign. It does not make sense
793 for X.509 certificates.
794 =Heinrich Heine <heinrichh@uni-duesseldorf.de>
796 By exact match on an email address.
799 This is indicated by enclosing the email address in the usual
800 way with left and right angles.
801 <heinrichh@uni-duesseldorf.de>
803 By partial match on an email address.
807 This is indicated by prefixing the search string with an @.
808 This uses a substring search but considers only the mail address
809 (i.e. inside the angle brackets).
810 @heinrichh
812 By exact match on the subject's DN.
815 This is indicated by a leading slash, directly followed by the
816 RFC-2253 encoded DN of the subject. Note that you can't use the
817 string printed by gpgsm --list-keys because that one has been
818 reordered and modified for better readability; use --with-colons
819 to print the raw (but standard escaped) RFC-2253 string.
820 /CN=Heinrich Heine,O=Poets,L=Paris,C=FR
822 By exact match on the issuer's DN.
825 This is indicated by a leading hash mark, directly followed by a
826 slash and then directly followed by the RFC-2253 encoded DN of
827 the issuer. This should return the Root cert of the issuer.
828 See note above.
829 #/CN=Root Cert,O=Poets,L=Paris,C=FR
831 By exact match on serial number and issuer's DN.
835 This is indicated by a hash mark, followed by the hexadecimal
836 representation of the serial number, then followed by a slash
837 and the RFC-2253 encoded DN of the issuer. See note above.
838 #4F03/CN=Root Cert,O=Poets,L=Paris,C=FR
840 By keygrip.
843 This is indicated by an ampersand followed by the 40 hex digits
844 of a keygrip. gpgsm prints the keygrip when using the command
845 --dump-cert.
846 &D75F22C3F86E355877348498CDC92BD21010A480
848 By substring match.
852 This is the default mode but applications may want to explicitly
853 indicate this by putting the asterisk in front. Match is not
854 case sensitive.
855 Heine
857 *Heine
858 . and + prefixes
861 These prefixes are reserved for looking up mails anchored at the
862 end and for a word search mode. They are not yet implemented
863 and using them is undefined.
864 Please note that we have reused the hash mark identifier which
867 was used in old GnuPG versions to indicate the so called local-
868 id. It is not anymore used and there should be no conflict when
869 used with X.509 stuff.
870 Using the RFC-2253 format of DNs has the drawback that it is not
872 possible to map them back to the original encoding, however we
873 don't have to do this because our key database stores this en‐
874 coding as meta data.
875
879 $ gpgsm -er goo@bar.net <plaintext >ciphertext
880
885 There are a few configuration files to control certain aspects of
886 gpgsm's operation. Unless noted, they are expected in the current home
887 directory (see: [option --homedir]).
888 gpgsm.conf
892 This is the standard configuration file read by gpgsm on
893 startup. It may contain any valid long option; the leading two
894 dashes may not be entered and the option may not be abbreviated.
895 This default name may be changed on the command line (see:
896 [gpgsm-option --options]). You should backup this file.
897 policies.txt
901 This is a list of allowed CA policies. This file should list
902 the object identifiers of the policies line by line. Empty
903 lines and lines starting with a hash mark are ignored. Policies
904 missing in this file and not marked as critical in the certifi‐
905 cate will print only a warning; certificates with policies
906 marked as critical and not listed in this file will fail the
907 signature verification. You should backup this file.
908 For example, to allow only the policy 2.289.9.9, the file should
910 look like this:
911 # Allowed policies
913 2.289.9.9
914 qualified.txt
917 This is the list of root certificates used for qualified cer‐
918 tificates. They are defined as certificates capable of creating
919 legally binding signatures in the same way as handwritten signa‐
920 tures are. Comments start with a hash mark and empty lines are
921 ignored. Lines do have a length limit but this is not a serious
922 limitation as the format of the entries is fixed and checked by
923 gpgsm: A non-comment line starts with optional whitespace, fol‐
924 lowed by exactly 40 hex characters, white space and a lowercased
925 2 letter country code. Additional data delimited with by a
926 white space is current ignored but might late be used for other
927 purposes.
928 Note that even if a certificate is listed in this file, this
930 does not mean that the certificate is trusted; in general the
931 certificates listed in this file need to be listed also in
932 ‘trustlist.txt’.
933 This is a global file an installed in the data directory (e.g.
935 ‘/usr/share/gnupg/qualified.txt’). GnuPG installs a suitable
936 file with root certificates as used in Germany. As new Root-CA
937 certificates may be issued over time, these entries may need to
938 be updated; new distributions of this software should come with
939 an updated list but it is still the responsibility of the Admin‐
940 istrator to check that this list is correct.
941 Every time gpgsm uses a certificate for signing or verification
943 this file will be consulted to check whether the certificate un‐
944 der question has ultimately been issued by one of these CAs. If
945 this is the case the user will be informed that the verified
946 signature represents a legally binding (``qualified'') signa‐
947 ture. When creating a signature using such a certificate an ex‐
948 tra prompt will be issued to let the user confirm that such a
949 legally binding signature shall really be created.
950 Because this software has not yet been approved for use with
952 such certificates, appropriate notices will be shown to indicate
953 this fact.
954 help.txt
957 This is plain text file with a few help entries used with pinen‐
958 try as well as a large list of help items for gpg and gpgsm.
959 The standard file has English help texts; to install localized
960 versions use filenames like ‘help.LL.txt’ with LL denoting the
961 locale. GnuPG comes with a set of predefined help files in the
962 data directory (e.g. ‘/usr/share/gnupg/gnupg/help.de.txt’) and
963 allows overriding of any help item by help files stored in the
964 system configuration directory (e.g. ‘/etc/gnupg/help.de.txt’).
965 For a reference of the help file's syntax, please see the in‐
966 stalled ‘help.txt’ file.
967 com-certs.pem
971 This file is a collection of common certificates used to popu‐
972 lated a newly created ‘pubring.kbx’. An administrator may re‐
973 place this file with a custom one. The format is a concatena‐
974 tion of PEM encoded X.509 certificates. This global file is in‐
975 stalled in the data directory (e.g. ‘/usr/share/gnupg/com-
976 certs.pem’).
977 Note that on larger installations, it is useful to put predefined files
980 into the directory ‘/etc/skel/.gnupg/’ so that newly created users
981 start up with a working configuration. For existing users a small
982 helper script is provided to create these files (see: [addgnupghome]).
983 For internal purposes gpgsm creates and maintains a few other files;
985 they all live in the current home directory (see: [option --homedir]).
986 Only gpgsm may modify these files.
987 pubring.kbx
991 This a database file storing the certificates as well as meta
992 information. For debugging purposes the tool kbxutil may be
993 used to show the internal structure of this file. You should
994 backup this file.
995 random_seed
998 This content of this file is used to maintain the internal state
999 of the random number generator across invocations. The same
1000 file is used by other programs of this software too.
1001 S.gpg-agent
1004 If this file exists gpgsm will first try to connect to this
1005 socket for accessing gpg-agent before starting a new gpg-agent
1006 instance. Under Windows this socket (which in reality be a
1007 plain file describing a regular TCP listening port) is the stan‐
1008 dard way of connecting the gpg-agent.
1009
1012 gpg2(1), gpg-agent(1)
1013 The full documentation for this tool is maintained as a Texinfo manual.
1015 If GnuPG and the info program are properly installed at your site, the
1016 command
1017 info gnupg
1019 should give you access to the complete manual including a menu struc‐
1021 ture and an index.
1022GnuPG 2.2.27 2020-12-21 GPGSM(1)