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Manual: gpgsm

GPGSM(1) GNU Privacy Guard 2.4 GPGSM(1)

NAME
gpgsm - CMS encryption and signing tool

SYNOPSIS
gpgsm [--homedir dir] [--options file] [options] command [args]

DESCRIPTION
gpgsm is a tool similar to gpg to provide digital encryption and signing services on X.509 certificates and the CMS
protocol. It is mainly used as a backend for S/MIME mail processing. gpgsm includes a full featured certificate
management and complies with all rules defined for the German Sphinx project.

COMMANDS
Commands are not distinguished from options except for the fact that only one command is allowed.

Commands not specific to the function

--version
Print the program version and licensing information. Note that you cannot abbreviate this command.

--help, -h
Print a usage message summarizing the most useful command-line options. Note that you cannot abbreviate this
command.

--warranty
Print warranty information. Note that you cannot abbreviate this command.

--dump-options
Print a list of all available options and commands. Note that you cannot abbreviate this command.

Commands to select the type of operation

--encrypt
Perform an encryption. The keys the data is encrypted to must be set using the option --recipient.

--decrypt
Perform a decryption; the type of input is automatically determined. It may either be in binary form or PEM
encoded; automatic determination of base-64 encoding is not done.

--sign Create a digital signature. The key used is either the fist one found in the keybox or those set with the
--local-user option.

--verify
Check a signature file for validity. Depending on the arguments a detached signature may also be checked.

--server
Run in server mode and wait for commands on the stdin.

--call-dirmngr command [args]
Behave as a Dirmngr client issuing the request command with the optional list of args. The output of the
Dirmngr is printed stdout. Please note that file names given as arguments should have an absolute file name
(i.e. commencing with /) because they are passed verbatim to the Dirmngr and the working directory of the
Dirmngr might not be the same as the one of this client. Currently it is not possible to pass data via stdin
to the Dirmngr. command should not contain spaces.

This is command is required for certain maintaining tasks of the dirmngr where a dirmngr must be able to call
back to gpgsm. See the Dirmngr manual for details.

--call-protect-tool arguments
Certain maintenance operations are done by an external program call gpg-protect-tool; this is usually not in‐
stalled in a directory listed in the PATH variable. This command provides a simple wrapper to access this
tool. arguments are passed verbatim to this command; use ‘--help’ to get a list of supported operations.

How to manage the certificates and keys

--generate-key
--gen-key
This command allows the creation of a certificate signing request or a self-signed certificate. It is com‐
monly used along with the --output option to save the created CSR or certificate into a file. If used with
the --batch a parameter file is used to create the CSR or certificate and it is further possible to create
non-self-signed certificates.

--list-keys
-k List all available certificates stored in the local key database. Note that the displayed data might be re‐
formatted for better human readability and illegal characters are replaced by safe substitutes.

--list-secret-keys
-K List all available certificates for which a corresponding a secret key is available.

--list-external-keys pattern
List certificates matching pattern using an external server. This utilizes the dirmngr service.

--list-chain
Same as --list-keys but also prints all keys making up the chain.

--dump-cert
--dump-keys
List all available certificates stored in the local key database using a format useful mainly for debugging.

--dump-chain
Same as --dump-keys but also prints all keys making up the chain.

--dump-secret-keys
List all available certificates for which a corresponding a secret key is available using a format useful
mainly for debugging.

--dump-external-keys pattern
List certificates matching pattern using an external server. This utilizes the dirmngr service. It uses a
format useful mainly for debugging.

--show-certs [files]
This command takes certificate files as input and prints information about them in the same format as
--dump-cert does. Each file may either contain a single binary certificate or several PEM encoded certifi‐
cates. If no files are given, the input is taken from stdin.

Please note that the listing format may be changed in future releases and that the option --with-colons has
currently no effect.

--keydb-clear-some-cert-flags
This is a debugging aid to reset certain flags in the key database which are used to cache certain certificate
statuses. It is especially useful if a bad CRL or a weird running OCSP responder did accidentally revoke cer‐
tificate. There is no security issue with this command because gpgsm always make sure that the validity of a
certificate is checked right before it is used.

--delete-keys pattern
Delete the keys matching pattern. Note that there is no command to delete the secret part of the key di‐
rectly. In case you need to do this, you should run the command gpgsm --dump-secret-keys KEYID before you
delete the key, copy the string of hex-digits in the ``keygrip'' line and delete the file consisting of these
hex-digits and the suffix .key from the ‘private-keys-v1.d’ directory below our GnuPG home directory (usually
‘~/.gnupg’).

--export [pattern]
Export all certificates stored in the Keybox or those specified by the optional pattern. Those pattern consist
of a list of user ids (see: [how-to-specify-a-user-id]). When used along with the --armor option a few infor‐
mational lines are prepended before each block. There is one limitation: As there is no commonly agreed upon
way to pack more than one certificate into an ASN.1 structure, the binary export (i.e. without using armor)
works only for the export of one certificate. Thus it is required to specify a pattern which yields exactly
one certificate. Ephemeral certificate are only exported if all pattern are given as fingerprints or key‐
grips.

--export-secret-key-p12 key-id
Export the private key and the certificate identified by key-id using the PKCS#12 format. When used with the
--armor option a few informational lines are prepended to the output. Note, that the PKCS#12 format is not
very secure and proper transport security should be used to convey the exported key. (See: [option
--p12-charset].)

--export-secret-key-p8 key-id
--export-secret-key-raw key-id
Export the private key of the certificate identified by key-id with any encryption stripped. The ...-raw com‐
mand exports in PKCS#1 format; the ...-p8 command exports in PKCS#8 format. When used with the --armor option
a few informational lines are prepended to the output. These commands are useful to prepare a key for use on
a TLS server.

--import [files]
Import the certificates from the PEM or binary encoded files as well as from signed-only messages. This com‐
mand may also be used to import a secret key from a PKCS#12 file.

--learn-card
Read information about the private keys from the smartcard and import the certificates from there. This com‐
mand utilizes the gpg-agent and in turn the scdaemon.

--change-passphrase user_id
--passwd user_id
Change the passphrase of the private key belonging to the certificate specified as user_id. Note, that chang‐
ing the passphrase/PIN of a smartcard is not yet supported.

OPTIONS
GPGSM features a bunch of options to control the exact behaviour and to change the default configuration.

How to change the configuration

These options are used to change the configuration and are usually found in the option file.

--options file
Reads configuration from file instead of from the default per-user configuration file. The default configura‐
tion file is named ‘gpgsm.conf’ and expected in the ‘.gnupg’ directory directly below the home directory of
the user.

--homedir dir
Set the name of the home directory to dir. If this option is not used, the home directory defaults to
‘~/.gnupg’. It is only recognized when given on the command line. It also overrides any home directory
stated through the environment variable ‘GNUPGHOME’ or (on Windows systems) by means of the Registry entry
HKCU\Software\GNU\GnuPG:HomeDir.

On Windows systems it is possible to install GnuPG as a portable application. In this case only this command
line option is considered, all other ways to set a home directory are ignored.

-v

--verbose
Outputs additional information while running. You can increase the verbosity by giving several verbose com‐
mands to gpgsm, such as ‘-vv’.

--keyserver string
This is a deprecated option. It was used to add an LDAP server to use for X.509 certificate and CRL lookup.
The alias --ldapserver existed from version 2.2.28 to 2.2.33 and 2.3.2 to 2.3.4 but is now entirely ignored.

LDAP servers must be given in the configuration for dirmngr.

--policy-file filename
Change the default name of the policy file to filename. The default name is ‘policies.txt’.

--agent-program file
Specify an agent program to be used for secret key operations. The default value is determined by running the
command gpgconf. Note that the pipe symbol (|) is used for a regression test suite hack and may thus not be
used in the file name.

--dirmngr-program file
Specify a dirmngr program to be used for CRL checks. The default value is ‘/usr/bin/dirmngr’.

--prefer-system-dirmngr
This option is obsolete and ignored.

--disable-dirmngr
Entirely disable the use of the Dirmngr.

--no-autostart
Do not start the gpg-agent or the dirmngr if it has not yet been started and its service is required. This
option is mostly useful on machines where the connection to gpg-agent has been redirected to another machines.
If dirmngr is required on the remote machine, it may be started manually using gpgconf --launch dirmngr.

--no-secmem-warning
Do not print a warning when the so called "secure memory" cannot be used.

--log-file file
When running in server mode, append all logging output to file. Use ‘socket://’ to log to socket.

--log-time
Prefix all log output with a timestamp even if no log file is used.

Certificate related options

--enable-policy-checks
--disable-policy-checks
By default policy checks are enabled. These options may be used to change it.

--enable-crl-checks
--disable-crl-checks
By default the CRL checks are enabled and the DirMngr is used to check for revoked certificates. The disable
option is most useful with an off-line network connection to suppress this check and also to avoid that new
certificates introduce a web bug by including a certificate specific CRL DP. The disable option also disables
an issuer certificate lookup via the authorityInfoAccess property of the certificate; the --enable-is‐
suer-key-retrieve can be used to make use of that property anyway.

--enable-trusted-cert-crl-check
--disable-trusted-cert-crl-check
By default the CRL for trusted root certificates are checked like for any other certificates. This allows a
CA to revoke its own certificates voluntary without the need of putting all ever issued certificates into a
CRL. The disable option may be used to switch this extra check off. Due to the caching done by the Dirmngr,
there will not be any noticeable performance gain. Note, that this also disables possible OCSP checks for
trusted root certificates. A more specific way of disabling this check is by adding the ``relax'' keyword to
the root CA line of the ‘trustlist.txt’

--force-crl-refresh
Tell the dirmngr to reload the CRL for each request. For better performance, the dirmngr will actually opti‐
mize this by suppressing the loading for short time intervals (e.g. 30 minutes). This option is useful to make
sure that a fresh CRL is available for certificates hold in the keybox. The suggested way of doing this is by
using it along with the option --with-validation for a key listing command. This option should not be used in
a configuration file.

--enable-issuer-based-crl-check
Run a CRL check even for certificates which do not have any CRL distribution point. This requires that a
suitable LDAP server has been configured in Dirmngr and that the CRL can be found using the issuer. This op‐
tion reverts to what GnuPG did up to version 2.2.20. This option is in general not useful.

--enable-ocsp
--disable-ocsp
By default OCSP checks are disabled. The enable option may be used to enable OCSP checks via Dirmngr. If CRL
checks are also enabled, CRLs will be used as a fallback if for some reason an OCSP request will not succeed.
Note, that you have to allow OCSP requests in Dirmngr's configuration too (option --allow-ocsp) and configure
Dirmngr properly. If you do not do so you will get the error code ‘Not supported’.

--auto-issuer-key-retrieve
If a required certificate is missing while validating the chain of certificates, try to load that certificate
from an external location. This usually means that Dirmngr is employed to search for the certificate. Note
that this option makes a "web bug" like behavior possible. LDAP server operators can see which keys you re‐
quest, so by sending you a message signed by a brand new key (which you naturally will not have on your local
keybox), the operator can tell both your IP address and the time when you verified the signature. Note that
if CRL checking is not disabled issuer certificates are retrieved in any case using the caIssuers authorityIn‐
foAccess method.

--validation-model name
This option changes the default validation model. The only possible values are "shell" (which is the de‐
fault), "chain" which forces the use of the chain model and "steed" for a new simplified model. The chain
model is also used if an option in the ‘trustlist.txt’ or an attribute of the certificate requests it. How‐
ever the standard model (shell) is in that case always tried first.

--ignore-cert-extension oid
Add oid to the list of ignored certificate extensions. The oid is expected to be in dotted decimal form, like
2.5.29.3. This option may be used more than once. Critical flagged certificate extensions matching one of
the OIDs in the list are treated as if they are actually handled and thus the certificate will not be rejected
due to an unknown critical extension. Use this option with care because extensions are usually flagged as
critical for a reason.

Input and Output

--armor
-a Create PEM encoded output. Default is binary output.

--base64
Create Base-64 encoded output; i.e. PEM without the header lines.

--assume-armor
Assume the input data is PEM encoded. Default is to autodetect the encoding but this is may fail.

--assume-base64
Assume the input data is plain base-64 encoded.

--assume-binary
Assume the input data is binary encoded.

--input-size-hint n
This option can be used to tell GPGSM the size of the input data in bytes. n must be a positive base-10 num‐
ber. It is used by the --status-fd line ``PROGRESS'' to provide a value for ``total'' if that is not avail‐
able by other means.

--p12-charset name
gpgsm uses the UTF-8 encoding when encoding passphrases for PKCS#12 files. This option may be used to force
the passphrase to be encoded in the specified encoding name. This is useful if the application used to import
the key uses a different encoding and thus will not be able to import a file generated by gpgsm. Commonly
used values for name are Latin1 and CP850. Note that gpgsm itself automagically imports any file with a
passphrase encoded to the most commonly used encodings.

--default-key user_id
Use user_id as the standard key for signing. This key is used if no other key has been defined as a signing
key. Note, that the first --local-users option also sets this key if it has not yet been set; however --de‐
fault-key always overrides this.

--local-user user_id

-u user_id
Set the user(s) to be used for signing. The default is the first secret key found in the database.

--recipient name
-r Encrypt to the user id name. There are several ways a user id may be given (see: [how-to-specify-a-user-id]).

--output file
-o file
Write output to file. The default is to write it to stdout.

--with-key-data
Displays extra information with the --list-keys commands. Especially a line tagged grp is printed which tells
you the keygrip of a key. This string is for example used as the file name of the secret key. Implies
--with-colons.

--with-validation
When doing a key listing, do a full validation check for each key and print the result. This is usually a
slow operation because it requires a CRL lookup and other operations.

When used along with --import, a validation of the certificate to import is done and only imported if it suc‐
ceeds the test. Note that this does not affect an already available certificate in the DB. This option is
therefore useful to simply verify a certificate.

--with-md5-fingerprint
For standard key listings, also print the MD5 fingerprint of the certificate.

--with-keygrip
Include the keygrip in standard key listings. Note that the keygrip is always listed in --with-colons mode.

--with-secret
Include info about the presence of a secret key in public key listings done with --with-colons.

--no-pretty-dn
By default gpgsm prints distinguished names (DNs) like the Issuer or Subject in a more readable format (e.g.
using a well defined order of the parts). However, this format can't be used as input strings. This option
reverts printing to standard RFC-2253 format and thus avoids the need to use --dump-cert or --with-colons to
get the ``real'' name.

How to change how the CMS is created

--include-certs n
Using n of -2 includes all certificate except for the root cert, -1 includes all certs, 0 does not include any
certs, 1 includes only the signers cert and all other positive values include up to n certificates starting
with the signer cert. The default is -2.

--cipher-algo oid
Use the cipher algorithm with the ASN.1 object identifier oid for encryption. For convenience the strings
3DES, AES and AES256 may be used instead of their OIDs. The default is AES (2.16.840.1.101.3.4.1.2).

--digest-algo name
Use name as the message digest algorithm. Usually this algorithm is deduced from the respective signing cer‐
tificate. This option forces the use of the given algorithm and may lead to severe interoperability problems.

Doing things one usually do not want to do

--chuid uid
Change the current user to uid which may either be a number or a name. This can be used from the root account
to run gpgsm for another user. If uid is not the current UID a standard PATH is set and the envvar GNUPGHOME
is unset. To override the latter the option --homedir can be used. This option has only an effect when used
on the command line. This option has currently no effect at all on Windows.

--extra-digest-algo name
Sometimes signatures are broken in that they announce a different digest algorithm than actually used. gpgsm
uses a one-pass data processing model and thus needs to rely on the announced digest algorithms to properly
hash the data. As a workaround this option may be used to tell gpgsm to also hash the data using the algo‐
rithm name; this slows processing down a little bit but allows verification of such broken signatures. If
gpgsm prints an error like ``digest algo 8 has not been enabled'' you may want to try this option, with
‘SHA256’ for name.

--compliance string
Set the compliance mode. Valid values are shown when using "help" for string.

--min-rsa-length n
This option adjusts the compliance mode "de-vs" for stricter key size requirements. For example, a value of
3000 turns rsa2048 and dsa2048 keys into non-VS-NfD compliant keys.

--require-compliance
To check that data has been encrypted according to the rules of the current compliance mode, a gpgsm user
needs to evaluate the status lines. This is allows frontends to handle compliance check in a more flexible
way. However, for scripted use the required evaluation of the status-line requires quite some effort; this
option can be used instead to make sure that the gpgsm process exits with a failure if the compliance rules
are not fulfilled. Note that this option has currently an effect only in "de-vs" mode.

--assert-signer fpr_or_file
This option checks whether at least one valid signature on a file has been made with the specified key. The
key is either specified as a fingerprint or a file listing fingerprints. The fingerprint must be given or
listed in compact format (no colons or spaces in between). As of now only SHA-1 fingerprints are allowed.
This option can be given multiple times and each fingerprint is checked against the signing key as well as the
corresponding primary key. If fpr_or_file specifies a file, empty lines are ignored as well as all lines
starting with a hash sign. With this option gpgsm is guaranteed to return with an exit code of 0 if and only
if a signature has been encountered, is valid, and the key matches one of the fingerprints given by this op‐
tion.

--always-trust
Force encryption to the specified certificates without any validation of the certificate chain. The only re‐
quirement is that the certificate is capable of encryption. Note that this option is ineffective if --re‐
quire-compliance is used.

--ignore-cert-with-oid oid
Add oid to the list of OIDs to be checked while reading certificates from smartcards. The oid is expected to
be in dotted decimal form, like 2.5.29.3. This option may be used more than once. As of now certificates
with an extended key usage matching one of those OIDs are ignored during a --learn-card operation and not im‐
ported. This option can help to keep the local key database clear of unneeded certificates stored on smart‐
cards.

--faked-system-time epoch
This option is only useful for testing; it sets the system time back or forth to epoch which is the number of
seconds elapsed since the year 1970. Alternatively epoch may be given as a full ISO time string (e.g.
"20070924T154812").

--with-ephemeral-keys
Include ephemeral flagged keys in the output of key listings. Note that they are included anyway if the key
specification for a listing is given as fingerprint or keygrip.

--compatibility-flags flags
Set compatibility flags to work around problems due to non-compliant certificates or data. The flags are
given as a comma separated list of flag names and are OR-ed together. The special flag "none" clears the list
and allows one to start over with an empty list. To get a list of available flags the sole word "help" can be
used.

--debug-level level
Select the debug level for investigating problems. level may be a numeric value or by a keyword:

none No debugging at all. A value of less than 1 may be used instead of the keyword.

basic Some basic debug messages. A value between 1 and 2 may be used instead of the keyword.

advanced
More verbose debug messages. A value between 3 and 5 may be used instead of the keyword.

expert Even more detailed messages. A value between 6 and 8 may be used instead of the keyword.

guru All of the debug messages you can get. A value greater than 8 may be used instead of the keyword. The
creation of hash tracing files is only enabled if the keyword is used.

How these messages are mapped to the actual debugging flags is not specified and may change with newer releases of
this program. They are however carefully selected to best aid in debugging.

--debug flags
Set debug flags. All flags are or-ed and flags may be given in C syntax (e.g. 0x0042) or as a comma separated
list of flag names. To get a list of all supported flags the single word "help" can be used. This option is
only useful for debugging and the behavior may change at any time without notice.

Note, that all flags set using this option may get overridden by --debug-level.

--debug-all
Same as --debug=0xffffffff

--debug-allow-core-dump
Usually gpgsm tries to avoid dumping core by well written code and by disabling core dumps for security rea‐
sons. However, bugs are pretty durable beasts and to squash them it is sometimes useful to have a core dump.
This option enables core dumps unless the Bad Thing happened before the option parsing.

--debug-no-chain-validation
This is actually not a debugging option but only useful as such. It lets gpgsm bypass all certificate chain
validation checks.

--debug-ignore-expiration
This is actually not a debugging option but only useful as such. It lets gpgsm ignore all notAfter dates,
this is used by the regression tests.

--passphrase-fd n
Read the passphrase from file descriptor n. Only the first line will be read from file descriptor n. If you
use 0 for n, the passphrase will be read from STDIN. This can only be used if only one passphrase is supplied.

Note that this passphrase is only used if the option --batch has also been given.

--pinentry-mode mode
Set the pinentry mode to mode. Allowed values for mode are:

default
Use the default of the agent, which is ask.

ask Force the use of the Pinentry.

cancel Emulate use of Pinentry's cancel button.

error Return a Pinentry error (``No Pinentry'').

loopback
Redirect Pinentry queries to the caller. Note that in contrast to Pinentry the user is not prompted
again if he enters a bad password.

--request-origin origin
Tell gpgsm to assume that the operation ultimately originated at origin. Depending on the origin certain re‐
strictions are applied and the Pinentry may include an extra note on the origin. Supported values for origin
are: local which is the default, remote to indicate a remote origin or browser for an operation requested by a
web browser.

--no-common-certs-import
Suppress the import of common certificates on keybox creation.

All the long options may also be given in the configuration file after stripping off the two leading dashes.

HOW TO SPECIFY A USER ID
There are different ways to specify a user ID to GnuPG. Some of them are only valid for gpg others are only good for
gpgsm. Here is the entire list of ways to specify a key:

By key Id.
This format is deduced from the length of the string and its content or 0x prefix. The key Id of an X.509 cer‐
tificate are the low 64 bits of its SHA-1 fingerprint. The use of key Ids is just a shortcut, for all auto‐
mated processing the fingerprint should be used.

When using gpg an exclamation mark (!) may be appended to force using the specified primary or secondary key
and not to try and calculate which primary or secondary key to use.

The last four lines of the example give the key ID in their long form as internally used by the OpenPGP proto‐
col. You can see the long key ID using the option --with-colons.

234567C4
0F34E556E
01347A56A
0xAB123456

234AABBCC34567C4
0F323456784E56EAB
01AB3FED1347A5612
0x234AABBCC34567C4

By fingerprint.
This format is deduced from the length of the string and its content or the 0x prefix. Note, that only the 20
byte version fingerprint is available with gpgsm (i.e. the SHA-1 hash of the certificate).

When using gpg an exclamation mark (!) may be appended to force using the specified primary or secondary key
and not to try and calculate which primary or secondary key to use.

The best way to specify a key Id is by using the fingerprint. This avoids any ambiguities in case that there
are duplicated key IDs.

1234343434343434C434343434343434
123434343434343C3434343434343734349A3434
0E12343434343434343434EAB3484343434343434
0xE12343434343434343434EAB3484343434343434

gpgsm also accepts colons between each pair of hexadecimal digits because this is the de-facto standard on how to
present X.509 fingerprints. gpg also allows the use of the space separated SHA-1 fingerprint as printed by the key
listing commands.

By exact match on OpenPGP user ID.
This is denoted by a leading equal sign. It does not make sense for X.509 certificates.

=Heinrich Heine

By exact match on an email address.
This is indicated by enclosing the email address in the usual way with left and right angles.

By partial match on an email address.
This is indicated by prefixing the search string with an @. This uses a substring search but considers only
the mail address (i.e. inside the angle brackets).

@heinrichh

By exact match on the subject's DN.
This is indicated by a leading slash, directly followed by the RFC-2253 encoded DN of the subject. Note that
you can't use the string printed by gpgsm --list-keys because that one has been reordered and modified for
better readability; use --with-colons to print the raw (but standard escaped) RFC-2253 string.

/CN=Heinrich Heine,O=Poets,L=Paris,C=FR

By exact match on the issuer's DN.
This is indicated by a leading hash mark, directly followed by a slash and then directly followed by the
RFC-2253 encoded DN of the issuer. This should return the Root cert of the issuer. See note above.

#/CN=Root Cert,O=Poets,L=Paris,C=FR

By exact match on serial number and issuer's DN.
This is indicated by a hash mark, followed by the hexadecimal representation of the serial number, then fol‐
lowed by a slash and the RFC-2253 encoded DN of the issuer. See note above.

#4F03/CN=Root Cert,O=Poets,L=Paris,C=FR

By keygrip.
This is indicated by an ampersand followed by the 40 hex digits of a keygrip. gpgsm prints the keygrip when
using the command --dump-cert.

&D75F22C3F86E355877348498CDC92BD21010A480

By substring match.
This is the default mode but applications may want to explicitly indicate this by putting the asterisk in
front. Match is not case sensitive.

Heine
*Heine

. and + prefixes
These prefixes are reserved for looking up mails anchored at the end and for a word search mode. They are not
yet implemented and using them is undefined.

Please note that we have reused the hash mark identifier which was used in old GnuPG versions to indicate the
so called local-id. It is not anymore used and there should be no conflict when used with X.509 stuff.

Using the RFC-2253 format of DNs has the drawback that it is not possible to map them back to the original en‐
coding, however we don't have to do this because our key database stores this encoding as meta data.

EXAMPLES
$ gpgsm -er goo@bar.net ciphertext

FILES
There are a few configuration files to control certain aspects of gpgsm's operation. Unless noted, they are expected
in the current home directory (see: [option --homedir]).

gpgsm.conf
This is the standard configuration file read by gpgsm on startup. It may contain any valid long option; the
leading two dashes may not be entered and the option may not be abbreviated. This default name may be changed
on the command line (see: [gpgsm-option --options]). You should backup this file.

common.conf
This is an optional configuration file read by gpgsm on startup. It may contain options pertaining to all
components of GnuPG. Its current main use is for the "use-keyboxd" option.

policies.txt
This is a list of allowed CA policies. This file should list the object identifiers of the policies line by
line. Empty lines and lines starting with a hash mark are ignored. Policies missing in this file and not
marked as critical in the certificate will print only a warning; certificates with policies marked as critical
and not listed in this file will fail the signature verification. You should backup this file.

For example, to allow only the policy 2.289.9.9, the file should look like this:

# Allowed policies
2.289.9.9

qualified.txt
This is the legacy method to mark root certificates as usable for qualified certificates. Qualified certifi‐
cates are capable of creating legally binding signatures in the same way as handwritten signatures. The mod‐
ern method to mark such root certificates is to use the "qual" flag in the system trustlist.txt; see the gpg-
agent man page for details.

Comments int his file start with a hash mark and empty lines are ignored. Lines do have a length limit but
this is not a serious limitation as the format of the entries is fixed and checked by gpgsm: A non-comment
line starts with optional whitespace, followed by exactly 40 hex characters, white space and a lowercased 2
letter country code. Additional data delimited with by a white space is current ignored but might late be
used for other purposes.

Note that even if a certificate is listed in this file, this does not mean that the certificate is trusted; in
general the certificates listed in this file need to be listed also in ‘trustlist.txt’. This is a global file
an installed in the sysconf directory (e.g. ‘/etc/gnupg/qualified.txt’).

Every time gpgsm uses a certificate for signing or verification this file will be consulted to check whether
the certificate under question has ultimately been issued by one of these CAs. If this is the case the user
will be informed that the verified signature represents a legally binding (``qualified'') signature. When
creating a signature using such a certificate an extra prompt will be issued to let the user confirm that such
a legally binding signature shall really be created.

Because this software has not yet been approved for use with such certificates, appropriate notices will be
shown to indicate this fact.

help.txt
This is plain text file with a few help entries used with pinentry as well as a large list of help items for
gpg and gpgsm. The standard file has English help texts; to install localized versions use filenames like
‘help.LL.txt’ with LL denoting the locale. GnuPG comes with a set of predefined help files in the data direc‐
tory (e.g. ‘/usr/share/gnupg/gnupg/help.de.txt’) and allows overriding of any help item by help files stored
in the system configuration directory (e.g. ‘/etc/gnupg/help.de.txt’). For a reference of the help file's
syntax, please see the installed ‘help.txt’ file.

com-certs.pem
This file is a collection of common certificates used to populated a newly created ‘pubring.kbx’. An adminis‐
trator may replace this file with a custom one. The format is a concatenation of PEM encoded X.509 certifi‐
cates. This global file is installed in the data directory (e.g. ‘/usr/share/gnupg/com-certs.pem’).

Note that on larger installations, it is useful to put predefined files into the directory ‘/etc/skel/.gnupg/’ so
that newly created users start up with a working configuration. For existing users a small helper script is provided
to create these files (see: [addgnupghome]).

For internal purposes gpgsm creates and maintains a few other files; they all live in the current home directory
(see: [option --homedir]). Only gpgsm may modify these files.

pubring.kbx
This a database file storing the certificates as well as meta information. For debugging purposes the tool
kbxutil may be used to show the internal structure of this file. You should backup this file.

random_seed
This content of this file is used to maintain the internal state of the random number generator across invoca‐
tions. The same file is used by other programs of this software too.

S.gpg-agent
If this file exists gpgsm will first try to connect to this socket for accessing gpg-agent before starting a
new gpg-agent instance. Under Windows this socket (which in reality be a plain file describing a regular TCP
listening port) is the standard way of connecting the gpg-agent.

SEE ALSO
<a href="gpg.html">gpg(1)</a>, <a href="gpg-agent.html">gpg-agent(1)</a>

The full documentation for this tool is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If GnuPG and the info program are properly
installed at your site, the command

info gnupg

should give you access to the complete manual including a menu structure and an index.

GnuPG 2.4.8 2025-02-19 <a href="GPGSM.html">GPGSM(1)</a></pre>
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