[YLUG] gpg question

[Jan Tobias Muehlberg]

On Tue, Oct 31, 2006 at 04:37:05PM +0000, Arthur Clune wrote:
> >You'll probably need to take a look at the code to figure out the
> >details...
> That would be madness. It's bad enough that this doesn't seem to be  
> in the docs. Or if it is, it's not clear enough for me.

Hm, check the manpage at line 350 ff.; but you are right, it
isn't very clearly documented and there's no doubt that the
output format could be improved.

> Thanks to your comments though, I think I now understand. It's  
> telling me that I only have 21 keys that can be considered valid in  
> my keyring (out of >120 primary keys + many more sub + uids) based on  

Exactly.

> What it isn't telling me is if the key I've just imported can be  
> considered valid or not unless I've missed something (in this case,  

No, it's not in there. When importing a new key gpg updates the
trustdb. What it shows you then is statistical output generated
while analysing your key ring. If you want to know something
about a specific key use

| $ gpg --edit-key arthur
| [...]
| [ unknown] (1). Arthur Clune (Work Email) <ajc22 at york.ac.uk>
| [ unknown] (2)  Arthur Clune (Private Email) <arthur at clune.org>
  ^^^^^^^^^^
  Trust

Anyway, before encrypting something with an untrusted key, gpg asks
you whether you really want to do it.

J.T.


-- 
"It gets worse. I have, before now, waited for a pen to perform a macro."
                                  -- Terry Pratchett in alt.fan.pratchett
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