1DIRMNGR(8) GNU Privacy Guard 2.2 DIRMNGR(8)
2
6 dirmngr - GnuPG's network access daemon
7
9 dirmngr [options] command [args]
10
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.
19
26 Commands are not distinguished from options except for the fact that
27 only one command is allowed.
28 --version
31 Print the program version and licensing information. Note that
32 you cannot abbreviate this command.
33 --help, -h
36 Print a usage message summarizing the most useful command-line
37 options. Note that you cannot abbreviate this command.
38 --dump-options
41 Print a list of all available options and commands. Note that
42 you cannot abbreviate this command.
43 --server
46 Run in server mode and wait for commands on the stdin. The de‐
47 fault mode is to create a socket and listen for commands there.
48 This is only used for testing.
49 --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 --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 --list-crls
67 List the contents of the CRL cache on stdout. This is probably
68 only useful for debugging purposes.
69 --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 --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 --shutdown
89 This commands shuts down an running instance of Dirmngr. This
90 command has currently no effect.
91 --flush
94 This command removes all CRLs from Dirmngr's cache. Client re‐
95 quests will thus trigger reading of fresh CRLs.
96
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.
102 --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 --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 di‐
114 rectory named ‘.gnupg’ directly below the home directory of the
115 user unless the environment variable GNUPGHOME has been set in
116 which case its value will be used. Many kinds of data are
117 stored within this directory.
118 -v
122 --verbose
124 Outputs additional information while running. You can increase
125 the verbosity by giving several verbose commands to dirmngr,
126 such as -vv.
127 --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 --debug-level level
137 Select the debug level for investigating problems. level may be
138 a numeric value or by a keyword:
139 none No debugging at all. A value of less than 1 may be used
142 instead of the keyword.
143 basic Some basic debug messages. A value between 1 and 2 may
145 be used instead of the keyword.
146 advanced
148 More verbose debug messages. A value between 3 and 5 may
149 be used instead of the keyword.
150 expert Even more detailed messages. A value between 6 and 8 may
152 be used instead of the keyword.
153 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 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 --debug flags
165 Set debug flags. All flags are or-ed and flags may be given in
166 C syntax (e.g. 0x0042) or as a comma separated list of flag
167 names. To get a list of all supported flags the single word
168 "help" can be used. This option is only useful for debugging
169 and the behavior may change at any time without notice.
170 --debug-all
173 Same as --debug=0xffffffff
174 --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 --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 --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 -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 --force
204 Enabling this option forces loading of expired CRLs; this is
205 only useful for debugging.
206 --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. The test on the availabil‐
217 ity of Tor is done by trying to connect to a SOCKS proxy at ei‐
218 ther port 9050 or 9150; if another type of proxy is listening on
219 one of these ports, you should use --no-use-tor.
220 --standard-resolver
223 This option forces the use of the system's standard DNS resolver
224 code. This is mainly used for debugging. Note that on Windows
225 a standard resolver is not used and all DNS access will return
226 the error ``Not Implemented'' if this option is used. Using
227 this together with enabled Tor mode returns the error ``Not En‐
228 abled''.
229 --recursive-resolver
232 When possible use a recursive resolver instead of a stub re‐
233 solver.
234 --resolver-timeout n
237 Set the timeout for the DNS resolver to N seconds. The default
238 are 30 seconds.
239 --connect-timeout n
242 --connect-quick-timeout n
244 Set the timeout for HTTP and generic TCP connection attempts to
245 N seconds. The value set with the quick variant is used when
246 the --quick option has been given to certain Assuan commands.
247 The quick value is capped at the value of the regular connect
248 timeout. The default values are 15 and 2 seconds. Note that
249 the timeout values are for each connection attempt; the connec‐
250 tion code will attempt to connect all addresses listed for a
251 server.
252 --listen-backlog n
255 Set the size of the queue for pending connections. The default
256 is 64.
257 --allow-version-check
260 Allow Dirmngr to connect to https://versions.gnupg.org to get
261 the list of current software versions. If this option is en‐
262 abled the list is retrieved in case the local copy does not ex‐
263 ist or is older than 5 to 7 days. See the option --query-swdb
264 of the command gpgconf for more details. Note, that regardless
265 of this option a version check can always be triggered using
266 this command:
267 gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'loadswdb --force' /bye
269 --keyserver name
273 Use name as your keyserver. This is the server that gpg commu‐
274 nicates with to receive keys, send keys, and search for keys.
275 The format of the name is a URI: `scheme:[//]keyserver‐
276 name[:port]' The scheme is the type of keyserver: "hkp" for the
277 HTTP (or compatible) keyservers, "ldap" for the LDAP keyservers,
278 or "mailto" for the Graff email keyserver. Note that your par‐
279 ticular installation of GnuPG may have other keyserver types
280 available as well. Keyserver schemes are case-insensitive. After
281 the keyserver name, optional keyserver configuration options may
282 be provided. These are the same as the --keyserver-options of
283 gpg, but apply only to this particular keyserver.
284 Most keyservers synchronize with each other, so there is gener‐
286 ally no need to send keys to more than one server. Somes key‐
287 servers use round robin DNS to give a different keyserver each
288 time you use it.
289 If exactly two keyservers are configured and only one is a Tor
291 hidden service (.onion), Dirmngr selects the keyserver to use
292 depending on whether Tor is locally running or not. The check
293 for a running Tor is done for each new connection.
294 If no keyserver is explicitly configured, dirmngr will use the
296 built-in default of https://keyserver.ubuntu.com.
297 Windows users with a keyserver running on their Active Directory
299 may use the short form ldap:/// for name to access this direc‐
300 tory.
301 For accessing anonymous LDAP keyservers name is in general just
303 a ldaps://ldap.example.com. A BaseDN parameter should never be
304 specified. If authentication is required things are more com‐
305 plicated and two methods are available:
306 The modern method (since version 2.2.28) is to use the very same
308 syntax as used with the option --ldapserver. Please see over
309 there for details; here is an example:
310 keyserver ldap:ldap.example.com::uid=USERNAME,ou=GnuPG Users,
312 dc=example,dc=com:PASSWORD::starttls
313 The other method is to use a full URL for name; for example:
315 keyserver ldaps://ldap.example.com/????bindname=uid=USERNAME
317 %2Cou=GnuPG%20Users%2Cdc=example%2Cdc=com,password=PASSWORD
318 Put this all on one line without any spaces and keep the '%2C'
320 as given. Replace USERNAME, PASSWORD, and the 'dc' parts
321 according to the instructions received from your LDAP
322 administrator. Note that only simple authentication
323 (i.e. cleartext passwords) is supported and thus using ldaps is
324 strongly suggested (since 2.2.28 "ldaps" defaults to port 389
325 and uses STARTTLS). On Windows authentication via AD can be
326 requested by adding gpgNtds=1 after the fourth question
327 mark instead of the bindname and password parameter.
328 --nameserver ipaddr
333 In ``Tor mode'' Dirmngr uses a public resolver via Tor to re‐
334 solve DNS names. If the default public resolver, which is
335 8.8.8.8, shall not be used a different one can be given using
336 this option. Note that a numerical IP address must be given
337 (IPv6 or IPv4) and that no error checking is done for ipaddr.
338 --disable-ipv4
341 --disable-ipv6
343 Disable the use of all IPv4 or IPv6 addresses.
344 --disable-ldap
347 Entirely disables the use of LDAP.
348 --disable-http
351 Entirely disables the use of HTTP.
352 --ignore-http-dp
355 When looking for the location of a CRL, the to be tested cer‐
356 tificate usually contains so called CRL Distribution Point (DP)
357 entries which are URLs describing the way to access the CRL.
358 The first found DP entry is used. With this option all entries
359 using the HTTP scheme are ignored when looking for a suitable
360 DP.
361 --ignore-ldap-dp
364 This is similar to --ignore-http-dp but ignores entries using
365 the LDAP scheme. Both options may be combined resulting in ig‐
366 noring DPs entirely.
367 --ignore-ocsp-service-url
370 Ignore all OCSP URLs contained in the certificate. The effect
371 is to force the use of the default responder.
372 --honor-http-proxy
375 If the environment variable ‘http_proxy’ has been set, use its
376 value to access HTTP servers.
377 --http-proxy host[:port]
380 Use host and port to access HTTP servers. The use of this op‐
381 tion overrides the environment variable ‘http_proxy’ regardless
382 whether --honor-http-proxy has been set.
383 --ldap-proxy host[:port]
387 Use host and port to connect to LDAP servers. If port is omit‐
388 ted, port 389 (standard LDAP port) is used. This overrides any
389 specified host and port part in a LDAP URL and will also be used
390 if host and port have been omitted from the URL.
391 --only-ldap-proxy
394 Never use anything else but the LDAP "proxy" as configured with
395 --ldap-proxy. Usually dirmngr tries to use other configured
396 LDAP server if the connection using the "proxy" failed.
397 --ldapserverlist-file file
401 Read the list of LDAP servers to consult for CRLs and X.509 cer‐
402 tificates from file instead of the default per-user ldap server
403 list file. The default value for file is ‘dirm‐
404 ngr_ldapservers.conf’.
405 This server list file contains one LDAP server per line in the
407 format
408 hostname:port:username:password:base_dn:flags
410 Lines starting with a ‘#’ are comments.
412 Note that as usual all strings entered are expected to be UTF-8
414 encoded. Obviously this will lead to problems if the password
415 has originally been encoded as Latin-1. There is no other solu‐
416 tion here than to put such a password in the binary encoding
417 into the file (i.e. non-ascii characters won't show up read‐
418 able). ([The gpgconf tool might be helpful for frontends as it
419 enables editing this configuration file using percent-escaped
420 strings.])
421 --ldapserver spec
425 This is an alternative way to specify LDAP servers for CRL and
426 X.509 certificate retrieval. If this option is used the servers
427 configured in ‘dirmngr_ldapservers.conf’ (or the file given by
428 --ldapserverlist-file) are cleared. Note that ‘dirm‐
429 ngr_ldapservers.conf’ is not read again by a reload signal. How‐
430 ever, --ldapserver options are read again.
431 spec is either a proper LDAP URL or a colon delimited list of
433 the form
434 hostname:port:username:password:base_dn:flags:
436 with an optional prefix of ldap: (but without the two slashes
438 which would turn this into a proper LDAP URL). flags is a list
439 of one or more comma delimited keywords:
440 plain The default: Do not use a TLS secured connection at all;
442 the default port is 389.
443 starttls
445 Use STARTTLS to secure the connection; the default port
446 is 389.
447 ldaptls
449 Tunnel LDAP through a TLS connection; the default port is
450 636.
451 ntds On Windows authenticate the LDAP connection using the Ac‐
453 tive Directory with the current user.
454 Note that in an URL style specification the scheme ldaps:// refers to
456 STARTTLS and _not_ to LDAP-over-TLS.
457 --ldaptimeout secs
461 Specify the number of seconds to wait for an LDAP query before
462 timing out. The default are 15 seconds. 0 will never timeout.
463 --add-servers
467 This option makes dirmngr add any servers it discovers when val‐
468 idating certificates against CRLs to the internal list of
469 servers to consult for certificates and CRLs. This option
470 should in general not be used.
471 This option might be useful when trying to validate a certifi‐
473 cate that has a CRL distribution point that points to a server
474 that is not already listed in the ldapserverlist. Dirmngr will
475 always go to this server and try to download the CRL, but
476 chances are high that the certificate used to sign the CRL is
477 located on the same server. So if dirmngr doesn't add that new
478 server to list, it will often not be able to verify the signa‐
479 ture of the CRL unless the --add-servers option is used.
480 Caveat emptor: Using this option may enable denial-of-service
482 attacks and leak search requests to unknown third parties. This
483 is because arbitrary servers are added to the internal list of
484 LDAP servers which in turn is used for all unspecific LDAP
485 queries as well as a fallback for queries which did not return a
486 result.
487 --allow-ocsp
491 This option enables OCSP support if requested by the client.
492 OCSP requests are rejected by default because they may violate
494 the privacy of the user; for example it is possible to track the
495 time when a user is reading a mail.
496 --ocsp-responder url
500 Use url as the default OCSP Responder if the certificate does
501 not contain information about an assigned responder. Note, that
502 --ocsp-signer must also be set to a valid certificate.
503 --ocsp-signer fpr|file
506 Use the certificate with the fingerprint fpr to check the re‐
507 sponses of the default OCSP Responder. Alternatively a filename
508 can be given in which case the response is expected to be signed
509 by one of the certificates described in that file. Any argument
510 which contains a slash, dot or tilde is considered a filename.
511 Usual filename expansion takes place: A tilde at the start fol‐
512 lowed by a slash is replaced by the content of ‘HOME’, no slash
513 at start describes a relative filename which will be searched at
514 the home directory. To make sure that the file is searched in
515 the home directory, either prepend the name with "./" or use a
516 name which contains a dot.
517 If a response has been signed by a certificate described by
519 these fingerprints no further check upon the validity of this
520 certificate is done.
521 The format of the FILE is a list of SHA-1 fingerprint, one per
523 line with optional colons between the bytes. Empty lines and
524 lines prefix with a hash mark are ignored.
525 --ocsp-max-clock-skew n
529 The number of seconds a skew between the OCSP responder and them
530 local clock is accepted. Default is 600 (10 minutes).
531 --ocsp-max-period n
534 Seconds a response is at maximum considered valid after the time
535 given in the thisUpdate field. Default is 7776000 (90 days).
536 --ocsp-current-period n
539 The number of seconds an OCSP response is considered valid after
540 the time given in the NEXT_UPDATE datum. Default is 10800 (3
541 hours).
542 --max-replies n
546 Do not return more that n items in one query. The default is
547 10.
548 --ignore-cert-extension oid
551 Add oid to the list of ignored certificate extensions. The oid
552 is expected to be in dotted decimal form, like 2.5.29.3. This
553 option may be used more than once. Critical flagged certificate
554 extensions matching one of the OIDs in the list are treated as
555 if they are actually handled and thus the certificate won't be
556 rejected due to an unknown critical extension. Use this option
557 with care because extensions are usually flagged as critical for
558 a reason.
559 --ignore-cert fpr|file
562 Entirely ignore certificates with the fingerprint fpr. As an
563 alternative to the fingerprint a filename can be given in which
564 case all certificates described in that file are ignored. Any
565 argument which contains a slash, dot or tilde is considered a
566 filename. Usual filename expansion takes place: A tilde at the
567 start followed by a slash is replaced by the content of ‘HOME’,
568 no slash at start describes a relative filename which will be
569 searched at the home directory. To make sure that the file is
570 searched in the home directory, either prepend the name with
571 "./" or use a name which contains a dot. The format of such a
572 file is a list of SHA-1 fingerprint, one per line with optional
573 colons between the bytes. Empty lines and lines prefixed with a
574 hash mark are ignored.
575 This option is useful as a quick workaround to exclude certain
577 certificates from the system store.
578 --hkp-cacert file
582 Use the root certificates in file for verification of the TLS
583 certificates used with hkps (keyserver access over TLS). If the
584 file is in PEM format a suffix of .pem is expected for file.
585 This option may be given multiple times to add more root cer‐
586 tificates. Tilde expansion is supported.
587 If no hkp-cacert directive is present, dirmngr will use the sys‐
589 tem CAs.
590
593 Here is an example on how to show dirmngr's internal table of OpenPGP
594 keyserver addresses. The output is intended for debugging purposes and
595 not part of a defined API.
596 gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'keyserver --hosttable' /bye
598 To inhibit the use of a particular host you have noticed in one of the
600 keyserver pools, you may use
601 gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'keyserver --dead pgpkeys.bnd.de' /bye
603 The description of the keyserver command can be printed using
605 gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'help keyserver' /bye
607
613 Dirmngr makes use of several directories when running in daemon mode:
614 There are a few configuration files to control the operation of dirm‐
615 ngr. By default they may all be found in the current home directory
616 (see: [option --homedir]).
617 dirmngr.conf
621 This is the standard configuration file read by dirmngr on
622 startup. It may contain any valid long option; the leading two
623 dashes may not be entered and the option may not be abbreviated.
624 This file is also read after a SIGHUP however not all options
625 will actually have an effect. This default name may be changed
626 on the command line (see: [option --options]). You should
627 backup this file.
628 /etc/gnupg/trusted-certs
631 This directory should be filled with certificates of Root CAs
632 you are trusting in checking the CRLs and signing OCSP Re‐
633 sponses.
634 Usually these are the same certificates you use with the appli‐
636 cations making use of dirmngr. It is expected that each of
637 these certificate files contain exactly one DER encoded certifi‐
638 cate in a file with the suffix ‘.crt’ or ‘.der’. dirmngr reads
639 those certificates on startup and when given a SIGHUP. Certifi‐
640 cates which are not readable or do not make up a proper X.509
641 certificate are ignored; see the log file for details.
642 Applications using dirmngr (e.g. gpgsm) can request these cer‐
644 tificates to complete a trust chain in the same way as with the
645 extra-certs directory (see below).
646 Note that for OCSP responses the certificate specified using the
648 option --ocsp-signer is always considered valid to sign OCSP re‐
649 quests.
650 /etc/gnupg/extra-certs
653 This directory may contain extra certificates which are pre‐
654 loaded into the internal cache on startup. Applications using
655 dirmngr (e.g. gpgsm) can request cached certificates to complete
656 a trust chain. This is convenient in cases you have a couple
657 intermediate CA certificates or certificates usually used to
658 sign OCSP responses. These certificates are first tried before
659 going out to the net to look for them. These certificates must
660 also be DER encoded and suffixed with ‘.crt’ or ‘.der’.
661 ~/.gnupg/crls.d
664 This directory is used to store cached CRLs. The ‘crls.d’ part
665 will be created by dirmngr if it does not exists but you need to
666 make sure that the upper directory exists.
667 Several options control the use of trusted certificates for TLS and
670 CRLs. Here is an Overview on the use and origin of those Root CA cer‐
671 tificates:
672 System
675 These System root certificates are used by: FIXME
677 The origin of the system provided certificates depends on the
679 platform. On Windows all certificates from the Windows System
680 Stores ROOT and CA are used.
681 On other platforms the certificates are read from the first file
683 found form this list: ‘/etc/ssl/ca-bundle.pem’,
684 ‘/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt’, ‘/etc/pki/tls/cert.pem’,
685 ‘/usr/local/share/certs/ca-root-nss.crt’, ‘/etc/ssl/cert.pem’.
686 GnuPG
689 The GnuPG specific certificates stored in the directory
691 ‘/etc/gnupg/trusted-certs’ are only used to validate CRLs.
692 OpenPGP keyserver
696 For accessing the OpenPGP keyservers the only certificates used
698 are those set with the configuration option hkp-cacert.
699 OpenPGP keyserver pool
702 This is usually only one certificate read from the file
704 ‘/usr/share/gnupg/gnupg/sks-keyservers.netCA.pem’. If this cer‐
705 tificate exists it is used to access the special keyservers
706 hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net (or ‘hkps://keys.gnupg.net’).
707 Please note that gpgsm accepts Root CA certificates for its own pur‐
710 poses only if they are listed in its file ‘trustlist.txt’. dirmngr
711 does not make use of this list - except FIXME.
712
716 To be able to see diagnostics it is often useful to put at least the
717 following lines into the configuration file ‘~/gnupg/dirmngr.conf’:
718 log-file ~/dirmngr.log
720 verbose
721 You may want to check the log file to see whether all desired root CA
723 certificates are correctly loaded.
724 To be able to perform OCSP requests you probably want to add the line:
726 allow-ocsp
728 To make sure that new options are read or that after the installation
730 of a new GnuPG versions the right dirmngr version is running, you
731 should kill an existing dirmngr so that a new instance is started as
732 needed by the otehr components:
733 gpgconf --kill dirmngr
735 Direct interfaction with the dirmngr is possible by using the command
737 gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr
739 Enter HELP at the prompt to see a list of commands and enter HELP fol‐
741 lowed by a command name to get help on that command.
742
748 A running dirmngr may be controlled by signals, i.e. using the kill
749 command to send a signal to the process.
750 Here is a list of supported signals:
752 SIGHUP This signal flushes all internally cached CRLs as well as any
756 cached certificates. Then the certificate cache is reinitial‐
757 ized as on startup. Options are re-read from the configuration
758 file. Instead of sending this signal it is better to use
759 gpgconf --reload dirmngr
760 SIGTERM
763 Shuts down the process but waits until all current requests are
764 fulfilled. If the process has received 3 of these signals and
765 requests are still pending, a shutdown is forced. You may also
766 use
767 gpgconf --kill dirmngr
768 instead of this signal
769 SIGINT Shuts down the process immediately.
772 SIGUSR1
776 This prints some caching statistics to the log file.
777
780 gpgsm(1), dirmngr-client(1)
781 The full documentation for this tool is maintained as a Texinfo manual.
783 If GnuPG and the info program are properly installed at your site, the
784 command
785 info gnupg
787 should give you access to the complete manual including a menu struc‐
789 ture and an index.
790GnuPG 2.3.3 2021-10-06 DIRMNGR(8)