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2 GNUPG - WHAT’S NEW IN 2.1
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15 1 What’s new in GnuPG 2.1
16 .. 1.1 Removal of the secret keyring
17 .. 1.2 Removal of PGP-2 support
18 .. 1.3 Leaner key generation interface
19 .. 1.4 Support for ECC
20 .. 1.5 Quick generate and sign commands
21 .. 1.6 Improved Pinentry support
22 .. 1.7 Auto-start of the gpg-agent
23 .. 1.8 Duplicate long key id fixes
24 .. 1.9 Enhanced Dirmngr
25 .. 1.10 Better keyserver pool support
26 .. 1.11 Faster keyring format
27 .. 1.12 Auto-generated revocation certificates
28 .. 1.13 Improved card support
29 .. 1.14 New format for key listings
30 .. 1.15 Recipient key from file
31 .. 1.16 Using gpg as a filter
32 .. 1.17 Support for Putty
33 .. 1.18 Export of SSH public keys
34 .. 1.19 Improved X.509 certificate creation
35 .. 1.20 Scripts to create a Windows installer
38 A possibly revised version of this article can be found at:
39 https://gnupg.org/faq/whats-new-in-2.1.html
42 1 What’s new in GnuPG 2.1
43 ═════════════════════════
45 GnuPG version 2.1 comes with a bag of new features which changes some
46 things old-timers are used to. This page explains the more important
47 ones. It expects that the reader is familiar with GnuPG version 2.0
48 and aware that GnuPG consists of /gpg/, /gpgsm/, and /gpg-agent/ as
51 • The file /secring.gpg/ is not anymore used to store the secret keys.
52 Merging of secret keys is now supported.
54 • All support for /PGP-2 keys/ has been removed for security reasons.
56 • The standard key generation interface is now much leaner. This will
57 help a new user to quickly generate a suitable key.
59 • Support for /Elliptic Curve Cryptography/ (ECC) is now available.
61 • Commands to create and sign keys from the command line without any
62 extra prompts are now available.
64 • The Pinentry may now show the new passphrase entry and the
65 passphrase confirmation entry in one dialog.
67 • There is no more need to manually start the gpg-agent. It is now
68 started by any part of GnuPG as needed.
70 • Problems with importing keys with the same long key id have been
73 • The /dirmngr/ is now part of GnuPG proper and also takes care of
76 • Keyserver pools are now handled in a smarter way.
78 • A new format for locally storing the public keys is now used. This
79 considerable speeds up operations on large keyrings.
81 • /Revocation certificates/ are now created by default.
83 • Card support has been updated, new readers and token types are
86 • The format of the key listing has been changed to better identify
87 the properties of a key.
89 • A file with the recipient’s key may now be used directly.
91 • Gpg can be used to filter out parts of a key.
93 • The gpg-agent may now be used on Windows as /pageant/ replacement
94 for /putty/ in the same way it is used for years on Unix as
95 /ssh-agent/ replacement.
97 • Creation of X.509 certificates has been improved. It is now also
98 possible to export them directly in PKCS#8 and PEM format for use on
101 • Export of /ssh/ keys has been integrated.
103 • The scripts to create a Windows installer are now part of GnuPG.
105 Now for the detailed description of these new features. Note that the
106 examples assume that that /gpg/ is installed as /gpg/. Your
107 installation may have it installed under the name /gpg2/.
110 1.1 Removal of the secret keyring
111 ─────────────────────────────────
113 gpg used to keep the public key pairs in two files: `pubring.gpg' and
114 `secring.gpg'. The only difference is that secring stored in addition
115 to the public part also the private part of the key pair. The secret
116 keyring thus contained only the keys for which a private key is
117 available, that is the user’s key. It required a lot of code to keep
118 both versions of the key in sync and led to sometimes surprising
121 The design of GnuPG-2 demands that only the gpg-agent has control over
122 the private parts of the keys and the actual encryption engine (gpg or
123 gpgsm) does not know about the private key but care only about session
124 keys and keys for symmetric encryption. This has been implemented
125 about 10 years ago for /gpgsm/ (the S/MIME part of GnuPG). However,
126 /gpg/ (the OpenPGP part) used the gpg-agent only as passphrase entry
127 and cache device but handles the private key itself.
129 With GnuPG 2.1 this changed and /gpg/ now also delegates all private
130 key operations to the gpg-agent. Thus there is no more code in the
131 /gpg/ binary for handling private keys. En passant this allows the
132 long time requested “merging of secret keys” and several other
133 advanced key management techniques.
135 To ease the migration to the no-secring method, /gpg/ detects the
136 presence of a `secring.gpg' and converts the keys on-the-fly to the
137 the key store of /gpg-agent/ (this is the `private-keys-v1.d'
138 directory below the GnuPG home directory (`~/.gnupg')). This is done
139 only once and an existing `secring.gpg' is then not anymore touched by
140 /gpg/. This allows co-existence of older GnuPG versions with GnuPG
141 2.1. However, any change to the private keys using the new /gpg/ will
142 not show up when using pre-2.1 versions of GnuPG and vice versa.
144 Note that the command `--export-secret-keys' still creates an OpenPGP
145 compliant file with the secret keys. This is achieved by asking
146 /gpg-agent/ to convert a key and return it in the OpenPGP protected
147 format. The export operation requires that the passphrase for the key
148 is entered so that /gpg-agent/ is able to change the protection from
149 its internal format to the OpenPGP required format.
152 1.2 Removal of PGP-2 support
153 ────────────────────────────
155 Some algorithms and parts of the protocols as used by the 20 years old
156 [PGP-2] software are meanwhile considered unsafe. In particular the
157 baked in use of the [MD5] hash algorithm limits the security of PGP-2
158 keys to non-acceptable rate. Technically those PGP-2 keys are called
159 version 3 keys (v3) and are easily identified by a shorter fingerprint
160 which is commonly presented as 16 separate double hex digits.
162 With GnuPG 2.1 all support for those keys has gone. If they are in an
163 existing keyring they will eventually be removed. If GnuPG encounters
164 such a key on import it will not be imported due to the not anymore
165 implemented v3 key format. Removing the v3 key support also reduces
166 complexity of the code and is thus better than to keep on handling
167 them with a specific error message.
169 There is one use case where PGP-2 keys may still be required: For
170 existing encrypted data. We suggest to keep a version of GnuPG 1.4
171 around which still has support for these keys (it might be required to
172 use the `--allow-weak-digest-algos' option). A better solution is to
173 re-encrypt the data using a modern key.
176 [PGP-2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy
178 [MD5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD5
181 1.3 Leaner key generation interface
182 ───────────────────────────────────
184 This is best shown with an example:
188 │ gpg (GnuPG) 2.1.0; Copyright (C) 2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
189 │ This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
190 │ There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
192 │ gpg: keybox '/home/foo/.gnupg/pubring.kbx' created
193 │ Note: Use "gpg --full-gen-key" for a full featured key generation dialog.
195 │ GnuPG needs to construct a user ID to identify your key.
197 │ Real name: Glenn Greenwald
198 │ Email address: glenn@example.org
199 │ You selected this USER-ID:
200 │ "Glenn Greenwald <glenn@example.org>"
202 │ Change (N)ame, (E)mail, or (O)kay/(Q)uit? o
204 │ pub rsa2048/68FD0088 2014-11-03
205 │ Key fingerprint = 0290 5ABF 17C7 81FB C390 9B00 636A 1BBD 68FD 0088
206 │ uid [ultimate] Glenn Greenwald <glenn@example.org>
207 │ sub rsa2048/84439DCD 2014-11-03
210 Thus only the name and the mail address are required. For all other
211 parameters the default values are used. Many graphical frontends
212 works in the same way. Note that /gpg/ prints a hint for the old time
213 gpg users on how to get the full option menu.
219 GnuPG now support Elliptic Curve keys for public key encryption. This
220 is defined in [RFC-6637]. Because there is no other mainstream
221 OpenPGP implementation yet available which supports ECC, the use of
222 such keys is still very limited. Thus GnuPG 2.1 currently hides the
223 options to create an ECC key.
225 For those who want to experiment with ECC or already want to prepare a
226 key for future use, the command `--full-gen-key' along with the option
227 `--expert' is the enabler:
230 │ $ gpg --expert --full-gen-key
231 │ gpg (GnuPG) 2.1.0; Copyright (C) 2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
232 │ This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
233 │ There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
235 │ Please select what kind of key you want:
236 │ (1) RSA and RSA (default)
237 │ (2) DSA and Elgamal
238 │ (3) DSA (sign only)
239 │ (4) RSA (sign only)
240 │ (7) DSA (set your own capabilities)
241 │ (8) RSA (set your own capabilities)
243 │ (10) ECC (sign only)
244 │ (11) ECC (set your own capabilities)
246 │ Please select which elliptic curve you want:
250 │ (5) Brainpool P-256
251 │ (6) Brainpool P-384
252 │ (7) Brainpool P-512
254 │ Please specify how long the key should be valid.
255 │ 0 = key does not expire
256 │ <n> = key expires in n days
257 │ <n>w = key expires in n weeks
258 │ <n>m = key expires in n months
259 │ <n>y = key expires in n years
260 │ Key is valid for? (0)
261 │ Key does not expire at all
262 │ Is this correct? (y/N) y
264 │ GnuPG needs to construct a user ID to identify your key.
266 │ Real name: Edward Snowden
267 │ Email address: edward@example.org
269 │ You selected this USER-ID:
270 │ "Edward Snowden <edward@example.org>"
272 │ Change (N)ame, (C)omment, (E)mail or (O)kay/(Q)uit? o
274 │ pub nistp256/382660E3 2014-11-03
275 │ Key fingerprint = E630 27CF 3D68 22A7 6FF2 093E D179 9E72 3826 60E3
276 │ uid [ultimate] Edward Snowden <edward@example.org>
277 │ sub nistp256/48C9A997 2014-11-03 nistp256
280 In this example we created a primary ECC key for signing and an subkey
281 for encryption. For both we use the NIST P-256 curve. The key may
282 now be used in the same way as any other key. It is possible to add
283 an RSA subkey or one can create an RSA or DSA main key and add an ECC
284 subkey for signing or encryption. Note that the list of offered
285 curves depends on the installed Libgcrypt version.
287 For many people the NIST and also the Brainpool curves have an
288 doubtful origin and thus the plan for GnuPG is to use Bernstein’s
289 [Curve 25519] as default. GnuPG 2.1.0 already comes with support for
290 signing keys using the [Ed25519] variant of this curve. This has not
291 yet been standardized by the IETF (i.e. there is no RFC) but we won’t
292 wait any longer and go ahead using the proposed format for this
293 signing algorithm. The format for an encryption key has not yet been
294 finalized and will be added to GnuPG in one of the next point
295 releases. Recall that an encryption subkey can be added to a key at
296 any time. If you want to create a signing key you may do it this way:
299 │ $ gpg --expert --full-gen-key
300 │ gpg (GnuPG) 2.1.0; Copyright (C) 2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
301 │ This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
302 │ There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
304 │ Please select what kind of key you want:
305 │ (1) RSA and RSA (default)
306 │ (2) DSA and Elgamal
307 │ (3) DSA (sign only)
308 │ (4) RSA (sign only)
309 │ (7) DSA (set your own capabilities)
310 │ (8) RSA (set your own capabilities)
312 │ (10) ECC (sign only)
313 │ (11) ECC (set your own capabilities)
315 │ Please select which elliptic curve you want:
320 │ (5) Brainpool P-256
321 │ (6) Brainpool P-384
322 │ (7) Brainpool P-512
324 │ gpg: WARNING: Curve25519 is not yet part of the OpenPGP standard.
325 │ Use this curve anyway? (y/N) y
326 │ Please specify how long the key should be valid.
327 │ 0 = key does not expire
328 │ <n> = key expires in n days
329 │ <n>w = key expires in n weeks
330 │ <n>m = key expires in n months
331 │ <n>y = key expires in n years
332 │ Key is valid for? (0)
333 │ Key does not expire at all
334 │ Is this correct? (y/N) y
336 │ GnuPG needs to construct a user ID to identify your key.
338 │ Real name: Laura Poitras
339 │ Email address: laura@example.org
341 │ You selected this USER-ID:
342 │ "Laura Poitras <laura@example.org>"
344 │ Change (N)ame, (C)omment, (E)mail or (O)kay/(Q)uit? o
346 │ pub ed25519/5C1AFC2A 2014-11-03
347 │ Key fingerprint = ED85 4D98 5D8F 502F C6C5 FFB2 AA81 319E 5C1A FC2A
348 │ uid [ultimate] Laura Poitras <laura@example.org>
351 Support for ECC keys is available only on some keyservers but it is
352 expected that this will be fixed over the next few months.
355 [RFC-6637] https://rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6637
357 [Curve 25519] http://cr.yp.to/ecdh/curve25519-20060209.pdf
359 [Ed25519] http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13389-012-0027-1
362 1.5 Quick generate and sign commands
363 ────────────────────────────────────
365 Sometimes it is useful to use only command line options without any
366 parameter file or interactive prompts for generating a key or to sign
367 a key. This can now be accomplished with a few new commands:
370 │ $ gpg --batch --quick-gen-key 'Daniel Ellsberg <ellsberg@example.org>'
371 │ gpg: key 911B90A9 marked as ultimately trusted
374 If a key with that user id already exists, gpg bails out with an error
375 message. You can force creation using the option `--yes'. If you
376 want some more control, you may not use `--batch' and gpg will ask for
377 confirmation and show the resulting key:
380 │ $ gpg --quick-gen-key 'Daniel Ellsberg <ellsberg@example.org>'
381 │ About to create a key for:
382 │ "Daniel Ellsberg <ellsberg@example.org>"
385 │ gpg: A key for "Daniel Ellsberg <ellsberg@example.org>" already exists
386 │ Create anyway? (y/N) y
387 │ gpg: creating anyway
389 │ pub rsa2048/BD19AC1C 2014-11-04
390 │ Key fingerprint = 15CB 723E 2000 A1A8 2505 F3B7 CC00 B501 BD19 AC1C
391 │ uid [ultimate] Daniel Ellsberg <ellsberg@example.org>
392 │ sub rsa2048/72A4D018 2014-11-04
395 Another common operation is to sign a key. /gpg/ can do this directly
396 from the command line by giving the fingerprint of the to-be-signed
400 │ $ gpg --quick-sign-key '15CB 723E 2000 A1A8 2505 F3B7 CC00 B501 BD19 AC1C'
402 │ pub rsa2048/BD19AC1C
403 │ created: 2014-11-04 expires: never usage: SC
404 │ trust: ultimate validity: ultimate
405 │ Primary key fingerprint: 15CB 723E 2000 A1A8 2505 F3B7 CC00 B501 BD19 AC1C
407 │ Daniel Ellsberg <ellsberg@example.org>
410 In case the key has already been signed, the command prints a note and
411 exits with success. In case you want to check that it really worked,
412 use `--check-sigs' as usual:
415 │ $ gpg --check-sigs '15CB 723E 2000 A1A8 2505 F3B7 CC00 B501 BD19 AC1C'
416 │ gpg: checking the trustdb
417 │ gpg: 3 marginal(s) needed, 1 complete(s) needed, PGP trust model
418 │ gpg: depth: 0 valid: 6 signed: 1 trust: 0-, 0q, 0n, 0m, 0f, 6u
419 │ pub rsa2048/BD19AC1C 2014-11-04
420 │ uid [ full ] Daniel Ellsberg <ellsberg@example.org>
421 │ sig!3 BD19AC1C 2014-11-04 Daniel Ellsberg <ellsberg@example.org>
422 │ sig! 68FD0088 2014-11-04 Glenn Greenwald <glenn@example.org>
423 │ sub rsa2048/72A4D018 2014-11-04
424 │ sig! BD19AC1C 2014-11-04 Daniel Ellsberg <ellsberg@example.org>
428 The fingerprint may also be given without the spaces in which case
429 there is no need for the quotes. If you want to sign only certain
430 user ids of a key, list those user id verbatim after the fingerprint.
431 To create a non-exportable key signature, use the command
432 `--quick-lsign-key' instead.
434 Since version 2.1.4 it possible to directly add another user id to an
438 │ $ gpg -k 8CFDE12197965A9A
439 │ pub ed25519/8CFDE12197965A9A 2014-08-19
440 │ uid [ unknown] EdDSA sample key 1
441 │ $ gpg --quick-adduid 8CFDE12197965A9A 'Sample 2 <me@example.org>'
442 │ $ gpg -k 8CFDE12197965A9A
443 │ pub ed25519/8CFDE12197965A9A 2014-08-19
444 │ uid [ unknown] Sample 2 <me@example.org>
445 │ uid [ unknown] EdDSA sample key 1
448 Since version 2.1.13 another subkey can directly be added to an
452 │ $ gpg --quick-addkey 15CB723E2000A1A82505F3B7CC00B501BD19AC1C - - 2016-12-31
453 │ $ gpg -k 15CB723E2000A1A82505F3B7CC00B501BD19AC1C
454 │ pub rsa2048 2014-11-04 [SC]
455 │ 15CB723E2000A1A82505F3B7CC00B501BD19AC1C
456 │ uid [ unknown] Daniel Ellsberg <ellsberg@example.org>
457 │ sub rsa2048 2014-11-04 [E]
458 │ sub rsa2048 2016-06-06 [E] [expires: 2016-12-31]
461 Here we created another encryption subkey with an expiration date.
462 The key listing also shows the default key listing format introduced
463 with 2.1.13. There are a lot of other options to the `--quick-addkey'
464 command which are described in the manual.
466 Since version 2.1.14 it possible to revoke a user id on an existing
470 │ $ gpg -k 8CFDE12197965A9A
471 │ pub ed25519/8CFDE12197965A9A 2014-08-19
472 │ uid [ unknown] Sample 2 <me@example.org>
473 │ uid [ unknown] EdDSA sample key 1
474 │ $ gpg --quick-revuid 8CFDE12197965A9A 'EdDSA sample key 1'
475 │ $ gpg -k 8CFDE12197965A9A
476 │ pub ed25519/8CFDE12197965A9A 2014-08-19
477 │ uid [ unknown] Sample 2 <me@example.org>
481 1.6 Improved Pinentry support
482 ─────────────────────────────
484 When using a recent Pinentry module (0.90, GTK+ variant), the
485 gpg-agent will not anymore show two separate Pinentry dialogs to enter
486 a new passphrase and later to confirm the new passphrase. Instead the
487 first dialog also has the confirm/repeat entry and internally checks
490 With any Pinentry version the several separate dialogs to inform and
491 ask for confirmation about questionable properties of a new passphrase
492 (e.g. length, only alpha letters) have been combined into one dialog
493 to show all non-asserted constraints at once.
495 The GTK+ Pinentry does now allow pasting of values into the entries.
496 Copying them from the entries is still inhibited on purpose.
497 Depending on the system, the option `no-grab' may be required for in
498 the `gpg-agent.conf' file to actually make use of the paste feature.
501 1.7 Auto-start of the gpg-agent
502 ───────────────────────────────
504 The /gpg-agent/ is the central part of the GnuPG system. It takes
505 care of all private (secret) keys and if required diverts operations
506 to a smartcard or other token. It also provides support for the
507 Secure Shell by implementing the ssh-agent protocol.
509 The classic way to run /gpg-agent/ on Unix systems is by launching it
510 at login time and use an environment variable (`GPG_AGENT_INFO') to
511 tell the other GnuPG modules how to connect to the agent. However,
512 correctly managing the start up and this environment variable is
513 cumbersome so that that an easier method is required. Since GnuPG
514 2.0.16 the `--use-standard-socket' option already allowed to start the
515 agent on the fly; however the environment variable was still required.
517 With GnuPG 2.1 the need of `GPG_AGENT_INFO' has been completely
518 removed and the variable is ignored. Instead a fixed Unix domain
519 socket named `S.gpg-agent' in the GnuPG home directory (by default
520 `~/.gnupg') is used. The agent is also started on demand by all tools
521 requiring services from the agent.
523 If the option `--enable-ssh-support' is used the auto-start mechanism
524 does not work because /ssh/ does not know about this mechanism.
525 Instead it is required that the environment variable `SSH_AUTH_SOCK'
526 is set to the `S.gpg-agent.ssh' socket in the GnuPG home directory.
527 Further /gpg-agent/ must be started: Either by using a GnuPG command
528 which implicitly starts /gpg-agent/ or by using `gpgconf --launch
529 gpg-agent' to explicitly start it if not yet done.
532 1.8 Duplicate long key id fixes
533 ───────────────────────────────
535 A deficit of the OpenPGP protocol is that signatures carry only a
536 limited indication on which public key has been used to create a
537 signature. Thus a verification engine may only use this “long key id”
538 to look up the the key in its own store or from a public keyserver.
539 Unfortunately it has now become possible to create a key with a long
540 key id matching the key id of another key. Importing a key with a
541 long key id already used by another key in gpg’s local key store was
542 not possible due to checks done on import. Now, if the “wrong” key
543 has been imported first /gpg/ would not allow later import of the
544 second “correct” key. This problem has been fixed in 2.1 by allowing
545 the import and by doing trial verification against all matching keys.
551 Before version 2.1, /gpg/ used so-called keyserver helpers to access
552 the OpenPGP keyservers. A problem with that is that they are short
553 living processes which are not able to keep a state. With 2.1, the
554 formerly separate package Dirmngr (which was separate due to copyright
555 assignment reasons) has been integrated into GnuPG.
557 In the past /dirmngr/ was only used by /gpgsm/ for X.509 (S/MIME) CRL
558 and OCSP handling. Being a proper part of GnuPG /dirmngr/ does now
559 also care about accessing OpenPGP keyservers. This make its easier to
560 debug problems with the keyservers and to exchange additional
561 information about the keyserver between /gpg/ and /dirmngr/. It will
562 eventually also be possible to run background tasks to refresh keys.
564 Although the ability to start /dirmngr/ as a system service is still
565 available, this is not anymore recommended and instead /dirmngr/ is
566 now by default started on-demand, very similar to /gpg-agent/.
569 1.10 Better keyserver pool support
570 ──────────────────────────────────
572 For load balancing reasons, keyservers are organized in pools to
573 enable instant round-robin DNS assignment of random keyservers. A
574 problem with that approach is that the DNS resolver is not aware of
575 the state of the keyserver. If a keyserver has gone down or a routing
576 problems occurs, /gpg/ and its keyserver helpers were not aware of it
577 and would try over and over to use the same, dead, keyserver up until
578 the DNS information expires and a the DNS resolver assigned a new
579 server from the pool.
581 The new /dirmngr/ in GnuPG does not use the implicit round-robin of
582 the DNS resolver but uses its own DNS lookup and keeps an internal
583 table of all hosts from the pool along with the encountered aliveness
584 state. Thus after a failure (timeout) of a request, /dirmngr/ flags a
585 host as dead and randomly selects another one from the pool. After a
586 few hours the flag is removed so that the host will be tried again.
587 It is also possible to mark a specific host from a pool explicitly as
588 dead so that it won’t be used in the future. To interact with the
589 /dirmngr/ the `gpg-connect-agent' tool is used:
592 │ $ gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'help keyserver' /bye
593 │ $ gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'keyserver --hosttable' /bye
596 The first command prints a help screen for the keyserver command and
597 the second command prints the current host table.
600 1.11 Faster keyring format
601 ──────────────────────────
603 The format GnuPG has always used for the public keyring is actually a
604 slightly extended version of the on-the-wire format for OpenPGP key
605 exchange. This format is quite inflexible to work with when random
606 access to keys in the keyring is required. In fact /gpg/ always
607 parsed all keys in the keyring until it encountered the desired one.
608 With a large keyring (more than a few thousand keys) this could be
611 From its very beginning /gpgsm/ has used a different format to store
612 public keys (certificates) which we call a /keybox/. That file format
613 carries meta information about the stored keys and thus allows
614 searching without actually parsing the key and computing fingerprints
615 and such. The /keybox/ format has been designed to be protocol
616 independent and with 2.1 support for OpenPGP keys has been added.
617 Random access to the keys is now really fast and keyrings with 30000
618 keys and more are now easily possible. That change also enables us to
619 easily introduce other storage methods
621 If no `pubring.gpg' is found, /gpg/ defaults to the new /keybox/
622 format and creates a `pubring.kbx' keybox file. If such a keybox file
623 already exists, for example due to the use of /gpgsm/, it will also be
624 used for OpenPGP keys. However, if a `pubring.gpg' is found and no
625 keybox file with OpenPGP keys exists, the old `pubring.gpg' will be
626 used. Take care: GnuPG versions before 2.1 will always use the
627 `pubring.gpg' file and not know anything about keys stored in the
630 To convert an existing `pubring.gpg' file to the keybox format, you
631 first backup the ownertrust values, then rename the file to (for
632 example) `publickeys', so it won’t be recognized by any GnuPG version,
633 then run import, and finally restore the ownertrust values:
637 │ $ gpg --export-ownertrust >otrust.lst
638 │ $ mv pubring.gpg publickeys
639 │ $ gpg --import-options import-local-sigs --import publickeys
640 │ $ gpg --import-ownertrust otrust.lst
643 You may then rename the `publickeys' file back so that it can be used
644 by older GnuPG versions. Remember that in this case you have two
645 independent copies of the public keys. The ownertrust values are kept
646 by all gpg versions in the file `trustdb.gpg' but the above
647 precautions need to be taken to keep them over an import.
650 1.12 Auto-generated revocation certificates
651 ───────────────────────────────────────────
653 This version creates an ASCII armored revocation certificate for each
654 generated keypair and stores that certificate in a file named after
655 the fingerprint of the key in the `openpgp-revocs.d' directory below
656 the GnuPG home directory. Brief instructions on how to use this
657 revocation certificate are put at the top of the file.
660 1.13 Improved card support
661 ──────────────────────────
663 The /scdaemon/, which is responsible for accessing smardcards and
664 other tokens, has received many updates. In particular pluggable USB
665 readers with a fixed card now work smoothless and similar to standard
666 readers. The latest features of the [gnuk] token are supported. Code
667 for the SmartCard-HSM has been added. More card readers with a PIN
668 pad are supported. The internal CCID driver does now also work with
669 certain non-auto-configuration equipped readers.
672 [gnuk] http://www.fsij.org/doc-gnuk/
675 1.14 New format for key listings
676 ────────────────────────────────
678 Due to the introduction of ECC keys the old format to list keys was
679 not anymore suitable. In particular, the length of an ECC key is
680 defined but its expressiveness is limited without the other parameters
681 of the curve. The common way to describe an ECC key is by using the
682 assigned name of its curve. To allow for a common description we now
683 either use the algorithm name with appended key length or use the name
687 │ pub 2048D/1E42B367 2007-12-31 [expires: 2018-12-31]
689 │ pub dsa2048 2007-12-31 [SC] [expires: 2018-12-31]
690 │ 80615870F5BAD690333686D0F2AD85AC1E42B367
692 │ pub ed25519 2014-10-18 [SC]
693 │ 0B7F0C1D690BC440D5AFF9B56902F00A0AA914C9
696 The first two "pub"-items show the same key in the old format and in
697 the new format. The third "pub"-item shows an example of an ECC key
698 using an ed25519 curve. Note that since version 2.1.13 the key id is
699 not anymore shown. Instead the full fingerprint is shown in a compact
700 format; by using the option `--with-fingerprint' the non-compact
701 format is used. The `--keyid-format' option can be used to switch
702 back to the discouraged format which prints only the key id.
704 As a further change the validity of a key is now shown by default;
705 that is `show-uid-validity' is implicitly used for the
708 The annotated key listing produced by the `--with-colons' options did
709 not change. However a couple of new fields have been added, for
710 example if the new option `--with-secret' is used the “S/N of a token
711 field” indicates the presence of a secret key even in a public key
712 listing. This option is supported by recent [GPGME] versions and
713 makes writing of key manager software easier.
716 [GPGME] https://gnupg.org/related_software/gpgme/
719 1.15 Recipient key from file
720 ────────────────────────────
722 Since version 2.1.14 it is possible to specify the recipient’s key by
723 providing a file with that key. This done with the new options
724 `--recipient-file' (or short `-f') and `--hidden-recipient-file' (or
725 short `-F'). The file must containing exactly one key in binary or
726 armored format. All keys specified with those options are always
727 considered fully valid. These option may be mixed with the regular
728 options to specify a key. Along with the new convenience option
729 `--no-keyring' it is now possible to encrypt data without maintaining
733 1.16 Using gpg as a filter
734 ──────────────────────────
736 Since version 2.1.14 the export and import options have been enhanced
737 to allow the use of /gpg/ to modify a key without first stroing it in
738 the keyring. For example:
741 │ $ gpg --import-options import-minimal,import-export \
742 │ --output smallkey.gpg --import key.gpg
745 copies the keys in `keys.gpg' to `smallkey.gpg' while also removing
746 all key signatures except for the latest self-signatures. This can
747 even be further restricted to copy only a specific user ID to the
751 │ $ gpg --import-options import-minimal,import-export \
752 │ --import-filter keepuid='mbox = foo@example.org' \
753 │ --output smallkey.gpg --import key.gpg
756 Here the new `--import-filter' option is used to remove all user IDs
757 except for those which have the mail address “foo@example.org”. The
758 same is also possible while exporting a key:
761 │ $ gpg --export-filter keepuid='mbox = me@example.org' \
762 │ --armor --export 8CFDE12197965A9A >smallkey.asc
766 1.17 Support for Putty
767 ──────────────────────
769 On Windows the new option `--enable-putty-support' allows gpg-agent to
770 act as a replacement for [Putty]’s authentication agent /Pageant/. It
771 is the Windows counterpart for the `--enable-ssh-support' option as
775 [Putty] http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
778 1.18 Export of SSH public keys
779 ──────────────────────────────
781 The new command `--export-ssh-key' makes it easy to export an /ssh/
782 public key in the format used for ssh’s `authorized_keys' file. By
783 default the command exports the newest subkey with an authorization
784 usage flags. A special syntax can be used to export other subkeys.
785 This command is available since 2.1.11 and replaces the former debug
786 utility /gpgkey2ssh/.
789 1.19 Improved X.509 certificate creation
790 ────────────────────────────────────────
792 In addition to an improved certificate signing request menu, it is now
793 possible to create a self-signed certificate using the interactive
796 In batch mode the certificate creation dialog can now be controlled by
797 a parameter file with several new keywords. Such a parameter file
798 allows the creation of arbitrary X.509 certificates similar to what
799 can be done with /openssl/. It may thus be used as the base for a CA
800 software. For details see the “CSR and certificate creation” section
803 The new commands `--export-secret-key-p8' and –export-secret-key-raw=
804 may be used to export a secret key directly in PKCS#8 or PKCS#1
805 format. Thus X.509 certificates for TLS use may be managed by /gpgsm/
806 and directly exported in a format suitable for OpenSSL based servers.
809 1.20 Scripts to create a Windows installer
810 ──────────────────────────────────────────
812 GnuPG now comes with the /speedo/ build system which may be used to
813 quickly download and build GnuPG and all its direct dependencies on a
814 decent Unix system. See the README file for more instructions.
816 The very same script may also be used to build a complete NSIS based
817 installer for Windows using the mingw-w64 cross-compiler toolchain.
818 That installer will feature GnuPG proper, GPA as graphical frontend,
819 and GpgEX as a Windows Explorer extension. GnuPG needs to be unpacked
820 and from the top source directory you run this command
823 │ make -f build-aux/speedo.mk w32-installer
826 This command downloads all direct dependencies, checks the signatures
827 using the GnuPG version from the build system (all Linux distros
828 feature a suitable GnuPG tool), builds everything from source, and
829 uses NSIS to create the installer. Although this sounds easy, some
830 experience in setting up a development machine is still required.
831 Some versions of the toolchain exhibit bugs and thus your mileage may
832 vary. See the [Wiki] for more info.
834 Support for keyserver access over TLS is currently not available but
835 will be added with one of the next point releases.
839 # Copyright 2014--2016 The GnuPG Project.
840 # This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
841 # Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of
842 # this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
843 # or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA
846 # The canonical source for this article can be found in the gnupg-doc
847 # git repository as web/faq/whats-new-in-2.1.org.
850 [Wiki] https://wiki.gnupg.org/Build2.1_Windows
~ian / gnupg2.git / blob