gnupg/doc/DETAILS

Format of "---with-colons" listings
===================================

sec::1024:17:6C7EE1B8621CC013:1998-07-07:0:::Werner Koch <werner.koch@guug.de>:
ssb::1536:20:5CE086B5B5A18FF4:1998-07-07:0:::

 1. Field:  Type of record
	    pub = public key
	    sub = subkey (secondary key)
	    sec = secret key
	    ssb = secret subkey (secondary key)
	    uid = user id (only field 10 is used).
	    fpr = fingerprint: (fingerprint is in field 10)

 2. Field:  A letter describing the calculated trust, see doc/FAQ
	    (not used for secret keys)
 3. Field:  length of key in bits.
 4. Field:  Algorithm:	1 = RSA
		       16 = ElGamal (encrypt only)
		       17 = DSA (sometimes called DH, sign only)
		       20 = ElGamal (sign and encrypt)
 5. Field:  KeyID
 6. Field:  Creation Date (in UTC)
 7. Field:  Key expiration date or empty if none.
 8. Field:  Local ID: record number of the dir record in the trustdb
	    this value is only valid as long as the trustdb is not
	    deleted.  May be later used to lookup the key: You will be
	    able to use "#<local-id> as the user id.  This is needed
	    because keyids may not be unique - a program may use this
	    number to access keys later.
 9. Field:  Ownertrust (primary public keys only)
10. Field:  User-ID.  The value is quoted like a C string to avoid
	    control characters (the colon is quoted "\x3a").

More fields may be added later.


Key generation
==============
    Key generation shows progress by printing different characters to
    stderr:
	     "."  Last 10 Miller-Rabin tests failed
	     "+"  Miller-Rabin test succeeded
	     "!"  Reloading the pool with fresh prime numbers
	     "^"  Checking a new value for the generator
	     "<"  Size of one factor decreased
	     ">"  Size of one factor increased

    The prime number for ElGamal is generated this way:

    1) Make a prime number q of 160, 200, 240 bits (depending on the keysize)
    2) Select the length of the other prime factors to be at least the size
       of q and calculate the number of prime factors needed
    3) Make a pool of prime numbers, each of the length determined in step 2
    4) Get a new permutation out of the pool or continue with step 3
       if we have tested all permutations.
    5) Calculate a candidate prime p = 2 * q * p[1] * ... * p[n] + 1
    6) Check that this prime has the correct length (this may change q if
       it seems not to be possible to make a prime of the desired length)
    7) Check whether this is a prime using trial divisions and the
       Miller-Rabin test.
    8) Continue with step 4 if we did not find a prime in step 7.
    9) Find a generator for that prime.



Layout of the TrustDB
=====================
The TrustDB is built from fixed length records, where the first byte
describes the record type.  All numeric values are stored in network
byte order. The length of each record is 40 bytes. The first record of
the DB is always of type 2 and this is the only record of this type.

Record type 0:
--------------
    Unused record, can be reused for any purpose.

Record type 1:
--------------
    Version information for this TrustDB.  This is always the first
    record of the DB and the only one with type 1.
     1 byte value 2
     3 bytes 'gpg'  magic value
     1 byte Version of the TrustDB
     3 byte reserved
     1 u32  locked flags
     1 u32  timestamp of trustdb creation
     1 u32  timestamp of last modification
     1 u32  timestamp of last validation
	    (Used to keep track of the time, when this TrustDB was checked
	     against the pubring)
     1 u32  record number of keyhashtable
     1 u32  first free record
     1 u32  record number of shadow directory hash table
	    It does not make sense to combine this table with the key table
	    becuase the keyid is not in every case a part of the fingerprint.
     4 bytes reserved for version extension record


Record type 2: (directory record)
--------------
    Informations about a public key certificate.
    These are static values which are never changed without user interaction.

     1 byte value 2
     1 byte  reserved
     1 u32   LID     .	(This is simply the record number of this record.)
     1 u32   List of key-records (the first one is the primary key)
     1 u32   List of uid-records
     1 u32   cache record
     1 byte  ownertrust
     1 byte  sigflag
    20 byte reserved


Record type 3:	(key record)
--------------
    Informations about a primary public key.
    (This is mainly used to lookup a trust record)

     1 byte value 3
     1 byte  reserved
     1 u32   LID
     1 u32   next   - next key record
     7 bytes reserved
     1 byte  keyflags
     1 byte  pubkey algorithm
     1 byte  length of the fingerprint (in bytes)
     20 bytes fingerprint of the public key
	      (This is the value we use to identify a key)

Record type 4: (uid record)
--------------
    Informations about a userid
    We do not store the userid but the hash value of the userid because that
    is sufficient.

     1 byte value 4
     1 byte reserved
     1 u32  LID  points to the directory record.
     1 u32  next   next userid
     1 u32  pointer to preference record
     1 u32  siglist  list of valid signatures
     1 byte uidflags
     1 byte reserved
     20 bytes ripemd160 hash of the username.


Record type 5: (pref record)
--------------
    Informations about preferences

     1 byte value 5
     1 byte   reserved
     1 u32  LID; points to the directory record (and not to the uid record!).
	    (or 0 for standard preference record)
     1 u32  next
     30 byte preference data

Record type 6  (sigrec)
-------------
    Used to keep track of key signatures. Self-signatures are not
    stored.  If a public key is not in the DB, the signature points to
    a shadow dir record, which in turn has a list of records which
    might be interested in this key (and the signature record here
    is one).

     1 byte   value 6
     1 byte   reserved
     1 u32    LID	    points back to the dir record
     1 u32    next   next sigrec of this uid or 0 to indicate the
		     last sigrec.
     6 times
	1 u32  Local_id of signators dir or shadow dir record
	1 byte Flag: Bit 0 = checked: Bit 1 is valid (we have a real
			      directory record for this)
			 1 = valid is set (but my be revoked)



Record type 8: (shadow directory record)
--------------
    This record is used to reserved a LID for a public key.  We
    need this to create the sig records of other keys, even if we
    do not yet have the public key of the signature.
    This record (the record number to be more precise) will be reused
    as the dir record when we import the real public key.

     1 byte value 8
     1 byte  reserved
     1 u32   LID      (This is simply the record number of this record.)
     2 u32   keyid
     1 byte  pubkey algorithm
     3 byte reserved
     1 u32   hintlist	A list of records which have references to
			this key.  This is used for fast access to
			signature records which are not yet checked.
			Note, that this is only a hint and the actual records
			may not anymore hold signature records for that key
			but that the code cares about this.
    18 byte reserved



Record type 9:	(cache record)
--------------
    Used to bind the trustDB to the concrete instance of keyblock in
    a pubring. This is used to cache information.

     1 byte   value 9
     1 byte   reserved
     1 u32    Local-Id.
     8 bytes  keyid of the primary key (needed?)
     1 byte   cache-is-valid the following stuff is only
	      valid if this is set.
     1 byte   reserved
     20 bytes rmd160 hash value over the complete keyblock
	      This is used to detect any changes of the keyblock with all
	      CTBs and lengths headers. Calculation is easy if the keyblock
	      is optained from a keyserver: simply create the hash from all
	      received data bytes.

     1 byte   number of untrusted signatures.
     1 byte   number of marginal trusted signatures.
     1 byte   number of fully trusted signatures.
	      (255 is stored for all values greater than 254)
     1 byte   Trustlevel
		0 = undefined (not calculated)
		1 = unknown
		2 = not trusted
		3 = marginally trusted
		4 = fully trusted
		5 = ultimately trusted (have secret key too).


Record Type 10 (hash table)
--------------
    Due to the fact that we use fingerprints to lookup keys, we can
    implement quick access by some simple hash methods, and avoid
    the overhead of gdbm.  A property of fingerprints is that they can be
    used directly as hash values.  (They can be considered as strong
    random numbers.)
      What we use is a dynamic multilevel architecture, which combines
    hashtables, record lists, and linked lists.

    This record is a hashtable of 256 entries; a special property
    is that all these records are stored consecutively to make one
    big table. The hash value is simple the 1st, 2nd, ... byte of
    the fingerprint (depending on the indirection level).

    When used to hash shadow directory records, a different table is used
    and indexed by the keyid.

     1 byte value 10
     1 byte reserved
     n u32  recnum; n depends on the record length:
	    n = (reclen-2)/4  which yields 9 for the current record length
	    of 40 bytes.

    the total number of surch record which makes up the table is:
	 m = (256+n-1) / n
    which is 29 for a record length of 40.

    To look up a key we use the first byte of the fingerprint to get
    the recnum from this hashtable and look up the addressed record:
       - If this record is another hashtable, we use 2nd byte
	 to index this hast table and so on.
       - if this record is a hashlist, we walk all entries
	 until we found one a matching one.
       - if this record is a key record, we compare the
	 fingerprint and to decide whether it is the requested key;


Record type 11 (hash list)
--------------
    see hash table for an explanation.
    This is also used for other purposes.

    1 byte value 11
    1 byte reserved
    1 u32  next 	 next hash list record
    n times		 n = (reclen-5)/5
	1 u32  recnum

    For the current record length of 40, n is 7



Record type 254 (free record)
---------------
    All these records form a linked list of unused records.
     1 byte  value 254
     1 byte  reserved (0)
     1 u32   next_free



Packet Headers
===============

GNUPG uses PGP 2 packet headers and also understands OpenPGP packet header.
There is one enhancement used with the old style packet headers:

   CTB bits 10, the "packet-length length bits", have values listed in
   the following table:

      00 - 1-byte packet-length field
      01 - 2-byte packet-length field
      10 - 4-byte packet-length field
      11 - no packet length supplied, unknown packet length

   As indicated in this table, depending on the packet-length length
   bits, the remaining 1, 2, 4, or 0 bytes of the packet structure field
   are a "packet-length field".  The packet-length field is a whole
   number field.  The value of the packet-length field is defined to be
   the value of the whole number field.

   A value of 11 is currently used in one place: on compressed data.
   That is, a compressed data block currently looks like <A3 01 . .  .>,
   where <A3>, binary 10 1000 11, is an indefinite-length packet. The
   proper interpretation is "until the end of the enclosing structure",
   although it should never appear outermost (where the enclosing
   structure is a file).

+  This will be changed with another version, where the new meaning of
+  the value 11 (see below) will also take place.
+
+  A value of 11 for other packets enables a special length encoding,
+  which is used in case, where the length of the following packet can
+  not be determined prior to writing the packet; especially this will
+  be used if large amounts of data are processed in filter mode.
+
+  It works like this: After the CTB (with a length field of 11) a
+  marker field is used, which gives the length of the following datablock.
+  This is a simple 2 byte field (MSB first) containig the amount of data
+  following this field, not including this length field. After this datablock
+  another length field follows, which gives the size of the next datablock.
+  A value of 0 indicates the end of the packet. The maximum size of a
+  data block is limited to 65534, thereby reserving a value of 0xffff for
+  future extensions. These length markers must be insereted into the data
+  stream just before writing the data out.
+
+  This 2 byte filed is large enough, because the application must buffer
+  this amount of data to prepend the length marker before writing it out.
+  Data block sizes larger than about 32k doesn't make any sense. Note
+  that this may also be used for compressed data streams, but we must use
+  another packet version to tell the application that it can not assume,
+  that this is the last packet.




Other Notes
===========
    * For packet version 3 we calculate the keyids this way:
	RSA	:= low 64 bits of n
	ELGAMAL := build a v3 pubkey packet (with CTB 0x99) and calculate
		   a rmd160 hash value from it. This is used as the
		   fingerprint and the low 64 bits are the keyid.

    * Revocation certificates consist only of the signature packet;
      "import" knows how to handle this.  The rationale behind it is
      to keep them small.






Keyserver Message Format
-------------------------

The keyserver may be contacted by a Unix Domain socket or via TCP.

The format of a request is:

----
command-tag
"Content-length:" digits
CRLF
------

Where command-tag is

NOOP
GET <user-name>
PUT
DELETE <user-name>


The format of a response is:

------
"GNUPG/1.0" status-code status-text
"Content-length:" digits
CRLF
------------
followed by <digits> bytes of data


Status codes are:

     o	1xx: Informational - Request received, continuing process

     o	2xx: Success - The action was successfully received, understood,
	and accepted

     o	4xx: Client Error - The request contains bad syntax or cannot be
	fulfilled

     o	5xx: Server Error - The server failed to fulfill an apparently
	valid request



Ich werde jetzt doch das HKP Protokoll implementieren:

Naja, die Doku ist so gut wie nichtexistent, da gebe ich Dir recht.
In kurzen Worten:

(Minimal-)HTTP-Server auf Port 11371, versteht ein GET auf /pks/lookup,
wobei die Query-Parameter (Key-Value-Paare mit = zwischen Key und
Value; die Paare sind hinter ? und durch & getrennt). G<>ltige
Operationen sind:

- - op (Operation) mit den M<>glichkeiten index (gleich wie -kv bei
  PGP), vindex (-kvv) und get (-kxa)
- - search: Liste der Worte, die im Key vorkommen m<>ssen. Worte sind
  mit Worttrennzeichen wie Space, Punkt, @, ... getrennt, Worttrennzeichen
  werden nicht betrachtet, die Reihenfolge der Worte ist egal.
- - exact: (on=aktiv, alles andere inaktiv) Nur die Schl<68>ssel
  zur<75>ckgeben, die auch den "search"-String beinhalten (d.h.
  Wortreihenfolge und Sonderzeichen sind wichtig)
- - fingerprint (Bei [v]index auch den Fingerprint ausgeben), "on"
  f<>r aktiv, alles andere inaktiv

Neu (wird von GNUPG benutzt):
   /pks/lookup/<gnupg_formatierte_user_id>?op=<operation>

Zus<EFBFBD>tzlich versteht der Keyserver auch ein POST auf /pks/add, womit
man Keys hochladen kann.