@c Copyright (C) 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc. @c This is part of the GnuPG manual. @c For copying conditions, see the file gnupg.texi. @node Invoking GPG-AGENT @chapter Invoking GPG-AGENT @cindex GPG-AGENT command options @cindex command options @cindex options, GPG-AGENT command @c man begin DESCRIPTION @command{gpg-agent} is a daemon to manage secret (private) keys independently from any protocol. It is used as a backend for @command{gpg} and @command{gpgsm} as well as for a couple of other utilities. @noindent The usual way to run the agent is from the @code{~/.xsession} file: @example eval `gpg-agent --daemon` @end example @noindent If you don't use an X server, you can also put this into your regular startup file @code{~/.profile} or @code{.bash_profile}. It is best not to run multiple instance of the @command{gpg-agent}, so you should make sure that only is running: @command{gpg-agent} uses an environment variable to inform clients about the communication parameters. You can write the content of this environment variable to a file so that you can test for a running agent. This short script may do the job: @smallexample if test -f $HOME/.gpg-agent-info && \ kill -0 `cut -d: -f 2 $HOME/.gpg-agent-info` 2>/dev/null; then GPG_AGENT_INFO=`cat $HOME/.gpg-agent-info` export GPG_AGENT_INFO else eval `gpg-agent --daemon` echo $GPG_AGENT_INFO >$HOME/.gpg-agent-info fi @end smallexample @noindent You should always add the following lines to your @code{.bashrc} or whatever initialization file is used for all shell invocations: @smallexample GPG_TTY=`tty` export GPG_TTY @end smallexample @noindent It is important that this environment variable always reflects the output of the @code{tty} command. For W32 systems this option is not required. Please make sure that a proper pinentry program has been installed under the default filename (which is system dependant) or use the option @code{pinentry-pgm} to specify the full name of that program. It is often useful to install a symbolic link from the actual used pinentry (e.g. @file{/usr/bin/pinentry-gtk}) to the expected one (e.g. @file{/usr/bin/pinentry}). @c man end @noindent @xref{Option Index}, for an index to @command{GPG-AGENT}'s commands and options. @menu * Agent Commands:: List of all commands. * Agent Options:: List of all options. * Agent Configuration:: Configuration files. * Agent Signals:: Use of some signals. * Agent Examples:: Some usage examples. * Agent Protocol:: The protocol the agent uses. @end menu @c man begin COMMANDS @node Agent Commands @section Commands Commands are not distinguished from options execpt for the fact that only one one command is allowed. @table @gnupgtabopt @item --version @opindex version Print the program version and licensing information. Not that you can abbreviate this command. @item --help, -h @opindex help Print a usage message summarizing the most usefule command-line options. Not that you can abbreviate this command. @item --dump-options @opindex dump-options Print a list of all available options and commands. Not that you can abbreviate this command. @item --server @opindex server Run in server mode and wait for commands on the @code{stdin}. The default mode is to create a socket and listen for commands there. @item --daemon @opindex daemon Run the program in the background. This option is required to prevent it from being accidently running in the background. A common way to do this is: @example @end example $ eval `gpg-agent --daemon` @end table @c man begin OPTIONS @node Agent Options @section Option Summary @table @gnupgtabopt @anchor{option --options} @item --options @var{file} @opindex options Reads configuration from @var{file} instead of from the default per-user configuration file. The default configuration file is named @file{gpg-agent.conf} and expected in the @file{.gnupg} directory directly below the home directory of the user. @anchor{option --homedir} @item --homedir @var{dir} @opindex homedir Set the name of the home directory to @var{dir}. If his option is not used, the home directory defaults to @file{~/.gnupg}. It is only recognized when given on the command line. It also overrides any home directory stated through the environment variable @env{GNUPGHOME} or (on W32 systems) by means on the Registry entry @var{HKCU\Software\GNU\GnuPG:HomeDir}. @item -v @item --verbose @opindex v @opindex verbose Outputs additional information while running. You can increase the verbosity by giving several verbose commands to @sc{gpgsm}, such as @samp{-vv}. @item -q @item --quiet @opindex q @opindex quiet Try to be as quiet as possible. @item --batch @opindex batch Don't invoke a pinentry or do any other thing requiring human interaction. @item --faked-system-time @var{epoch} @opindex faked-system-time This option is only useful for testing; it sets the system time back or forth to @var{epoch} which is the number of seconds elapsed since the year 1970. @item --debug-level @var{level} @opindex debug-level Select the debug level for investigating problems. @var{level} may be one of: @table @code @item none no debugging at all. @item basic some basic debug messages @item advanced more verbose debug messages @item expert even more detailed messages @item guru all of the debug messages you can get @end table How these messages are mapped to the actual debugging flags is not specified and may change with newer releaes of this program. They are however carefully selected to best aid in debugging. @item --debug @var{flags} @opindex debug This option is only useful for debugging and the behaviour may change at any time without notice. FLAGS are bit encoded and may be given in usual C-Syntax. The currently defined bits are: @table @code @item 0 (1) X.509 or OpenPGP protocol related data @item 1 (2) values of big number integers @item 2 (4) low level crypto operations @item 5 (32) memory allocation @item 6 (64) caching @item 7 (128) show memory statistics. @item 9 (512) write hashed data to files named @code{dbgmd-000*} @item 10 (1024) trace Assuan protocol @item 12 (4096) bypass all certificate validation @end table @item --debug-all @opindex debug-all Same as @code{--debug=0xffffffff} @item --debug-wait @var{n} @opindex debug-wait When running in server mode, wait @var{n} seconds before entering the actual processing loop and print the pid. This gives time to attach a debugger. @item --no-detach @opindex no-detach Don't detach the process from the console. This is manly usefule for debugging. @item -s @itemx --sh @itemx -c @itemx --csh @opindex s @opindex sh @opindex c @opindex csh Format the info output in daemon mode for use with the standard Bourne shell respective the C-shell . The default ist to guess it based on the environment variable @code{SHELL} which is in almost all cases sufficient. @item --no-grab @opindex no-grab Tell the pinentryo not to grab the keyboard and mouse. This option should in general not be used to avaoid X-sniffing attacks. @item --log-file @var{file} @opindex log-file Append all logging output to @var{file}. This is very helpful in seeing what the agent actually does. @anchor{option --allow-mark-trusted} @item --allow-mark-trusted @opindex allow-mark-trusted Allow clients to mark keys as trusted, i.e. put them into the @file{trustlist.txt} file. This is by default not allowed to make it harder for users to inadvertly accept Root-CA keys. @item --ignore-cache-for-signing @opindex ignore-cache-for-signing This option will let @command{gpg-agent} bypass the passphrase cache for all signing operation. Note that there is also a per-session option to control this behaviour but this command line option takes precedence. @item --default-cache-ttl @var{n} @opindex default-cache-ttl Set the time a cache entry is valid to @var{n} seconds. The default are 600 seconds. @item --max-cache-ttl @var{n} @opindex max-cache-ttl Set the maximum time a cache entry is valid to @var{n} seconds. After this time a cache entry will get expired even if it has been accessed recently. The default are 2 hours (7200 seconds). @item --pinentry-program @var{filename} @opindex pinentry-program Use program @var{filename} as the PIN entry. The default is installation dependend and can be shown with the @code{--version} command. @item --scdaemon-program @var{filename} @opindex scdaemon-program Use program @var{filename} as the Smartcard daemon. The default is installation dependend and can be shown with the @code{--version} command. @item --disable-scdaemon @opindex disable-scdaemon Do not make use of the scdaemon tool. This option has the effect of disabling the ability to do smartcard operations. Note, that enabling this option at runtime does not kill an already forked scdaemon. @item --use-standard-socket @itemx --no-use-standard-socket @opindex use-standard-socket @opindex no-use-standard-socket By enabling this option @command{gpg-agent} will listen on the socket named @file{S.gpg-agent}, located in the home directory, and not create a random socket below a temporary directory. Tools connecting to @command{gpg-agent} should first try to connect to the socket given in environment variable @var{GPG_AGENT_INFO} and the fall back to this socket. This option may not be used if the home directory is mounted as a remote file system. @noindent Note, that as of now, W32 systems default to this option. @item --display @var{string} @itemx --ttyname @var{string} @itemx --ttytype @var{string} @itemx --lc-type @var{string} @itemx --lc-messages @var{string} @opindex display @opindex ttyname @opindex ttytype @opindex lc-type @opindex lc-messages These options are used with the server mode to pass localization information. @item --keep-tty @itemx --keep-display @opindex keep-tty @opindex keep-display Ignore requests to change change the current @sc{tty} respective the X window system's @code{DISPLAY} variable. This is useful to lock the pinentry to pop up at the @sc{tty} or display you started the agent. @anchor{option --enable-ssh-support} @item --enable-ssh-support @opindex enable-ssh-support Enable emulation of the OpenSSH Agent protocol. In this mode of operation, the agent does not only implement the gpg-agent protocol, but also the agent protocol used by OpenSSH (through a seperate socket). Consequently, it should possible to use the gpg-agent as a drop-in replacement for the well known ssh-agent. SSH Keys, which are to be used through the agent, need to be added to the gpg-agent initially through the ssh-add utility. When a key is added, ssh-add will ask for the password of the provided key file and send the unprotected key material to the agent; this causes the gpg-agent to ask for a passphrase, which is to be used for encrypting the newly received key and storing it in a gpg-agent specific directory. Once, a key has been added to the gpg-agent this way, the gpg-agent will be ready to use the key. Note: in case the gpg-agent receives a signature request, the user might need to be prompted for a passphrase, which is necessary for decrypting the stored key. Since the ssh-agent protocol does not contain a mechanism for telling the agent on which display/terminal it is running, gpg-agent's ssh-support will use the TTY or X display where gpg-agent has been started. @end table All the long options may also be given in the configuration file after stripping off the two leading dashes. @c man begin FILES @node Agent Configuration @section Configuration There are a few configuration files needed for the operation of the agent. By default they may all be found in the current home directory (@pxref{option --homedir}). @table @file @item gpg-agent.conf @cindex gpg-agent.conf This is the standard configuration file read by @command{gpg-agent} 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 file is also read after a @code{SIGHUP} however only a few options will actually have an effect. This default name may be changed on the command line (@pxref{option --options}). @item trustlist.txt This is the list of trusted keys. Comment lines, indicated by a leading hash mark, as well as empty lines are ignored. To mark a key as trusted you need to enter its fingerprint followed by a space and a capital letter @code{S}. Colons may optionally be used to separate the bytes of a fingerprint; this allows to cut and paste the fingeperint from a key listing output. Here is an example where two keys are marked as ultimately trusted: @example # CN=Wurzel ZS 3,O=Intevation GmbH,C=DE A6935DD34EF3087973C706FC311AA2CCF733765B S # CN=PCA-1-Verwaltung-02/O=PKI-1-Verwaltung/C=DE DC:BD:69:25:48:BD:BB:7E:31:6E:BB:80:D3:00:80:35:D4:F8:A6:CD S @end example Before entering a key into this file, you need to ensure its authenticity. How to do this depends on your organisation; your administrator might have already entered those keys which are deemed trustworthy enough into this file. Places where to look for the fingerprint of a root certificate are letters received from the CA or the website of the CA (after making 100% sure that this is indeed the website of that CA). You may want to consider allowing interactive updates of this file by using the @xref{option --allow-mark-trusted}. This is however not as secure as maintaining this file manually. It is even advisable to change the permissions to read-only so that this file can't be changed inadvertently. @item sshcontrol This file is used when support for the secure shell agent protocol has been enabled (@pxref{option --enable-ssh-support}). Only keys present in this file are used in the SSH protocol. The @command{ssh-add} tool y be used to add new entries to this file; you may also add them manually. Comment lines, indicated by a leading hash mark, as well as empty lines are ignored. An entry starts with optional white spaces, followed by the keygrip of the key given as 40 hex digits, optionally followed by the caching TTL in seconds and another optional field for arbitrary flags. A @code{!} may be prepended to the keygrip to disable this entry. The follwoing example lists exactly one key. Note that keys available through a OpenPGP smartcard in the active smartcard reader are implictly added to this list; i.e. there is no need to list them. @example # Key added on 2005-02-25 15:08:29 5A6592BF45DC73BD876874A28FD4639282E29B52 0 @end example @end table Note that on larger installations, it is useful to put predefined files into the directory @file{/etc/skel/.gnupg/} so that newly created users start up with a working configuration. For existing users the a small helper script is provied to create these files (@pxref{addgnupghome}). @c @c Agent Signals @c @node Agent Signals @section Use of some signals. A running @command{gpg-agent} may be controlled by signals, i.e. using the @command{kill} command to send a signal to the process. Here is a list of supported signals: @table @gnupgtabopt @item SIGHUP @cpindex SIGHUP This signal flushes all chached passphrases and if the program has been started with a configuration file, the configuration file is read again. Only certain options are honored: @code{quiet}, @code{verbose}, @code{debug}, @code{debug-all}, @code{debug-level}, @code{no-grab}, @code{pinentry-program}, @code{default-cache-ttl}, @code{max-cache-ttl}, @code{ignore-cache-for-signing}, @code{allow-mark-trusted} and @code{disable-scdaemon}. @code{scdaemon-program} is also supported but due to the current implementation, which calls the scdaemon only once, it is not of much use unless you manually kill the scdaemon. @item SIGTERM @cpindex SIGTERM Shuts down the process but waits until all current requests are fulfilled. If the process has received 3 of these signals and requests are still pending, a shutdown is forced. @item SIGINT @cpindex SIGINT Shuts down the process immediately. @item SIGUSR1 @itemx SIGUSR2 @cpindex SIGUSR1 @cpindex SIGUSR2 These signals are used for internal purposes. @end table @c @c Examples @c @node Agent Examples @section Examples @c man begin EXAMPLES @example $ eval `gpg-agent --daemon` @end example @c man end @c @c Assuan Protocol @c @node Agent Protocol @section Agent's Assuan Protocol Note: this section does only document the protocol, which is used by GnuPG components; it does not deal with the ssh-agent protocol. The @command{gpg-agent} should be started by the login shell and set an environment variable to tell clients about the socket to be used. Clients should deny to access an agent with a socket name which does not match its own configuration. An application may choose to start an instance of the gpgagent if it does not figure that any has been started; it should not do this if a gpgagent is running but not usable. Because @command{gpg-agent} can only be used in background mode, no special command line option is required to activate the use of the protocol. To identify a key we use a thing called keygrip which is the SHA-1 hash of an canoncical encoded S-Expression of the the public key as used in Libgcrypt. For the purpose of this interface the keygrip is given as a hex string. The advantage of using this and not the hash of a certificate is that it will be possible to use the same keypair for different protocols, thereby saving space on the token used to keep the secret keys. @menu * Agent PKDECRYPT:: Decrypting a session key * Agent PKSIGN:: Signing a Hash * Agent GENKEY:: Generating a Key * Agent IMPORT:: Importing a Secret Key * Agent EXPORT:: Exporting a Secret Key * Agent ISTRUSTED:: Importing a Root Certificate * Agent GET_PASSPHRASE:: Ask for a passphrase * Agent GET_CONFIRMATION:: Ask for confirmation * Agent HAVEKEY:: Check whether a key is available * Agent LEARN:: Register a smartcard * Agent PASSWD:: Change a Passphrase @end menu @node Agent PKDECRYPT @subsection Decrypting a session key The client asks the server to decrypt a session key. The encrypted session key should have all information needed to select the appropriate secret key or to delegate it to a smartcard. @example SETKEY @end example Tell the server about the key to be used for decryption. If this is not used, @command{gpg-agent} may try to figure out the key by trying to decrypt the message with each key available. @example PKDECRYPT @end example The agent checks whether this command is allowed and then does an INQUIRY to get the ciphertext the client should then send the cipher text. @example S: INQUIRE CIPHERTEXT C: D (xxxxxx C: D xxxx) C: END @end example Please note that the server may send status info lines while reading the data lines from the client. The data send is a SPKI like S-Exp with this structure: @example (enc-val ( ( ) ... ( ))) @end example Where algo is a string with the name of the algorithm; see the libgcrypt documentation for a list of valid algorithms. The number and names of the parameters depend on the algorithm. The agent does return an error if there is an inconsistency. If the decryption was successful the decrypted data is returned by means of "D" lines. Here is an example session: @example C: PKDECRYPT S: INQUIRE CIPHERTEXT C: D (enc-val elg (a 349324324) C: D (b 3F444677CA))) C: END S: # session key follows S: D 1234567890ABCDEF0 S: OK descryption successful @end example @node Agent PKSIGN @subsection Signing a Hash The client ask the agent to sign a given hash value. A default key will be chosen if no key has been set. To set a key a client first uses: @example SIGKEY @end example This can be used multiple times to create multiple signature, the list of keys is reset with the next PKSIGN command or a RESET. The server test whether the key is a valid key to sign something and responds with okay. @example SETHASH @end example The client can use this command to tell the server about the data (which usually is a hash) to be signed. The actual signing is done using @example PKSIGN @end example Options are not yet defined, but my later be used to choosen among different algorithms (e.g. pkcs 1.5) The agent does then some checks, asks for the passphrase and if SETHASH has not been used asks the client for the data to sign: @example S: INQUIRE HASHVAL C: D ABCDEF012345678901234 C: END @end example As a result the server returns the signature as an SPKI like S-Exp in "D" lines: @example (sig-val ( ( ) ... ( ))) @end example The operation is affected by the option @example OPTION use-cache-for-signing=0|1 @end example The default of @code{1} uses the cache. Setting this option to @code{0} will lead @command{gpg-agent} to ignore the passphrase cache. Note, that there is also a global command line option for @command{gpg-agent} to globally disable the caching. Here is an example session: @example C: SIGKEY S: OK key available C: SIGKEY S: OK key available C: PKSIGN S: # I did ask the user whether he really wants to sign S: # I did ask the user for the passphrase S: INQUIRE HASHVAL C: D ABCDEF012345678901234 C: END S: # signature follows S: D (sig-val rsa (s 45435453654612121212)) S: OK @end example @node Agent GENKEY @subsection Generating a Key This is used to create a new keypair and store the secret key inside the active PSE -w which is in most cases a Soft-PSE. An not yet defined option allows to choose the storage location. To get the secret key out of the PSE, a special export tool has to be used. @example GENKEY @end example Invokes the key generation process and the server will then inquire on the generation parameters, like: @example S: INQUIRE KEYPARM C: D (genkey (rsa (nbits 1024))) C: END @end example The format of the key parameters which depends on the algorithm is of the form: @example (genkey (algo (parameter_name_1 ....) .... (parameter_name_n ....))) @end example If everything succeeds, the server returns the *public key* in a SPKI like S-Expression like this: @example (public-key (rsa (n ) (e ))) @end example Here is an example session: @example C: GENKEY S: INQUIRE KEYPARM C: D (genkey (rsa (nbits 1024))) C: END S: D (public-key S: D (rsa (n 326487324683264) (e 10001))) S OK key created @end example @node Agent IMPORT @subsection Importing a Secret Key This operation is not yet supportted by GpgAgent. Specialized tools are to be used for this. There is no actual need because we can expect that secret keys created by a 3rd party are stored on a smartcard. If we have generated the key ourself, we do not need to import it. @node Agent EXPORT @subsection Export a Secret Key Not implemented. Should be done by an extra tool. @node Agent ISTRUSTED @subsection Importing a Root Certificate Actually we do not import a Root Cert but provide a way to validate any piece of data by storing its Hash along with a description and an identifier in the PSE. Here is the interface desription: @example ISTRUSTED @end example Check whether the OpenPGP primary key or the X.509 certificate with the given fingerprint is an ultimately trusted key or a trusted Root CA certificate. The fingerprint should be given as a hexstring (without any blanks or colons or whatever in between) and may be left padded with 00 in case of an MD5 fingerprint. GPGAgent will answer with: @example OK @end example The key is in the table of trusted keys. @example ERR 304 (Not Trusted) @end example The key is not in this table. Gpg needs the entire list of trusted keys to maintain the web of trust; the following command is therefore quite helpful: @example LISTTRUSTED @end example GpgAgent returns a list of trusted keys line by line: @example S: D 000000001234454556565656677878AF2F1ECCFF P S: D 340387563485634856435645634856438576457A P S: D FEDC6532453745367FD83474357495743757435D S S: OK @end example The first item on a line is the hexified fingerprint where MD5 ingerprints are @code{00} padded to the left and the second item is a flag to indicate the type of key (so that gpg is able to only take care of PGP keys). P = OpenPGP, S = S/MIME. A client should ignore the rest of the line, so that we can extend the format in the future. Finally a client should be able to mark a key as trusted: @example MARKTRUSTED @var{fingerprint} "P"|"S" @end example The server will then pop up a window to ask the user whether she really trusts this key. For this it will probably ask for a text to be displayed like this: @example S: INQUIRE TRUSTDESC C: D Do you trust the key with the fingerprint @@FPR@@ C: D bla fasel blurb. C: END S: OK @end example Known sequences with the pattern @@foo@@ are replaced according to this table: @table @code @item @@FPR16@@ Format the fingerprint according to gpg rules for a v3 keys. @item @@FPR20@@ Format the fingerprint according to gpg rules for a v4 keys. @item @@FPR@@ Choose an appropriate format to format the fingerprint. @item @@@@ Replaced by a single @code{@@} @end table @node Agent GET_PASSPHRASE @subsection Ask for a passphrase This function is usually used to ask for a passphrase to be used for conventional encryption, but may also be used by programs which need special handling of passphrases. This command uses a syntax which helps clients to use the agent with minimum effort. @example GET_PASSPHRASE @var{cache_id} [@var{error_message} @var{prompt} @var{description}] @end example @var{cache_id} is expected to be a hex string used for caching a passphrase. Use a @code{X} to bypass the cache. With no other arguments the agent returns a cached passphrase or an error. @var{error_message} is either a single @code{X} for no error message or a string to be shown as an error message like (e.g. "invalid passphrase"). Blanks must be percent escaped or replaced by @code{+}'. @var{prompt} is either a single @code{X} for a default prompt or the text to be shown as the prompt. Blanks must be percent escaped or replaced by @code{+}. @var{description} is a text shown above the entry field. Blanks must be percent escaped or replaced by @code{+}. The agent either returns with an error or with a OK followed by the hex encoded passphrase. Note that the length of the strings is implicitly limited by the maximum length of a command. @example CLEAR_PASSPHRASE @var{cache_id} @end example may be used to invalidate the cache entry for a passphrase. The function returns with OK even when there is no cached passphrase. @node Agent GET_CONFIRMATION @subsection Ask for confirmation This command may be used to ask for a simple confirmation by presenting a text and 2 bottonts: Okay and Cancel. @example GET_CONFIRMATION @var{description} @end example @var{description}is displayed along with a Okay and Cancel button. Blanks must be percent escaped or replaced by @code{+}. A @code{X} may be used to display confirmation dialog with a default text. The agent either returns with an error or with a OK. Note, that the length of @var{description} is implicitly limited by the maximum length of a command. @node Agent HAVEKEY @subsection Check whether a key is available This can be used to see whether a secret key is available. It does not return any information on whether the key is somehow protected. @example HAVEKEY @var{keygrip} @end example The Agent answers either with OK or @code{No_Secret_Key} (208). The caller may want to check for other error codes as well. @node Agent LEARN @subsection Register a smartcard @example LEARN [--send] @end example This command is used to register a smartcard. With the --send option given the certificates are send back. @node Agent PASSWD @subsection Change a Passphrase @example PASSWD @var{keygrip} @end example This command is used to interactively change the passphrase of the key indentified by the hex string @var{keygrip}.