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See ChangeLog: Tue Apr 6 19:58:12 CEST 1999 Werner Koch

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Werner Koch 1999-04-06 18:04:55 +00:00
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doc/FAQ
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@ -93,10 +93,10 @@
a v3 packet. GNUPG is the only program which had used
these v3 ElGamal keys - so this assumption is quite safe.
Q: Why is PGP 5.x not able to encrypt messages with my public key?
Q: Why is PGP 5.x not able to encrypt messages with some keys?
A: PGP Inc refuses to accept ElGamal keys of type 20 even for
encryption. They only supports type 16 (which are identical
at least for decryption). To be more inter-operable, GNUPG
encryption. They only support type 16 (which is identical
at least for decryption). To be more inter-operable, GnuPG
(starting with version 0.3.3) now also uses type 16 for the
ElGamal subkey which is created if the default key algorithm
is chosen. You may add an type 16 ElGamal key to your public
@ -104,7 +104,7 @@
Q: Why is PGP 5.x not able to verify my messages?
A: PGP 5.x does not accept V4 signatures for data material but
OpenPGP requires generation of V3 signatures for all kind of
OpenPGP requires generation of V4 signatures for all kind of
data. Use the option "--force-v3-sigs" to generate V3 signatures
for data.
@ -127,11 +127,10 @@
Q: How can I conventional encrypt a message, so that PGP can decrypt it?
A: You can't do this for PGP 2. For PGP 5 you should use this:
gpg -c --cipher-algo 3des --compress-algo 1 --no-comment myfile
gpg -c --cipher-algo 3des --compress-algo 1 myfile
You may replace "3des" by "cast5". "blowfish" does not work with
all versions of pgp5. You may also want to put
no-comment
compress-algo 1
into your ~/.gnupg/options file - this does not affect normal
gnupg operation.
@ -151,7 +150,7 @@
(a program (look at your daemons) that reads from /dev/[u]random).
Q: And it really takes long when I work on a remote system. Why?
A: Don't do this at all! You should never create keys or even use gnupg
A: Don't do this at all! You should never create keys or even use GnuPG
on a remote system because you normally have no physical control over
your secret keyring (which is in most cases vulnerable to advanced
dictionary attacks) - I strongly encourage everyone to only create keys
@ -160,7 +159,7 @@
sure to have a strong password for your account and for your secret key
and trust your Root.
When I check gnupg on a remote system via ssh (I have no Alpha here ;-)
When I check GnuPG on a remote system via ssh (I have no Alpha here ;-)
I have the same problem. It takes a *very* long time to create the
keys, so I use a special option, --quick-random, to generate insecure
keys which are only good for some tests.
@ -171,14 +170,13 @@
computed at the time it is needed. This is one of the reasons for the
trustdb which holds a list of valid key signatures. If you are not
running in batch mode you will be asked to assign a trust parameter
(ownertrust) to a key. I have plans to use a cache for calculated
trust values to speed up calculation.
(ownertrust) to a key.
You can see the validity (calculated trust value) using this command.
gpgm --list-keys --with-colons
If the first field is "pub", the second field shows you the trust:
If the first field is "pub" or "uid", the second field shows you the trust:
o = Unknown (this key is new to the system)
e = The key has expired
@ -190,6 +188,8 @@
is only used for keys for which
the secret key is also available.
The value in the "pub" record is the best one of all "uid" records.
You can get a list of the assigned trust values (how much you trust
the owner to correctly sign another person's key)
@ -271,15 +271,15 @@
Q: What is trust, validity and ownertrust?
A: "ownertrust" is used instead of "trust" to make clear that
this is the value you have assigned to key to express how much you
this is the value you have assigned to a key to express how much you
trust the owner of this key to correctly sign (and so introduce)
other keys. "validity", or calculated trust, is a value which
says how much the gnupg thinks a key is valid (that it really belongs
says how much GnuPG thinks a key is valid (that it really belongs
to the one who claims to be the owner of the key).
For more see the chapter "The Web of Trust" in the
Manual [gpg: Oops: Internal error: manual not found - sorry]
Q: How do interpret some of the informational outputs?
Q: How do I interpret some of the informational outputs?
A: While checking the validity of a key, GnuPG sometimes prints
some information which is prefixed with information about
the checked item.
@ -327,6 +327,6 @@
the displayed charset is the one you have activated on your system
"iso-8859-1" is the most used one, so this is the default. You can
change the charset with the option "--charset". It is important that
you active characterset matches the one displayed - if not restrict
you active characterset matches the one displayed - if not, restrict
yourself to plain 7 bit ASCII and no mapping has to be done.