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gnupg/doc/announce-2.1.txt
Werner Koch e0db5af7ed doc: Add announce text for 2.1 
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2014-11-06 10:03:39 +01:00

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Hello!

The GnuPG Project is pleased to announce the availability of a new release: Version 2.1.0.

The GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG) is a complete and free implementation of the OpenPGP standard as defined by RFC-4880 and better known as PGP.

GnuPG, also known as GPG, allows to encrypt and sign data and communication, features a versatile key management system as well as access modules for public key directories. GnuPG itself is a command line tool with features for easy integration with other applications. A wealth of frontend applications and libraries making use of GnuPG are available. Since version 2 GnuPG provides support for S/MIME and Secure Shell in addition to OpenPGP.

GnuPG is Free Software (meaning that it respects your freedom). It can be freely used, modified and distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

Three different versions of GnuPG are actively maintained:

  • GnuPG "modern" (2.1) is the latest development with a lot of new features. This announcement is about the first release of this version.

  • GnuPG "stable" (2.0) is the current stable version for general use. This is what most users are currently using.

  • GnuPG "classic" (1.4) is the old standalone version which is most suitable for older or embedded platforms.

You may not install "modern" (2.1) and "stable" (2.0) at the same time. However, it is possible to install "classic" (1.4) along with any of the other versions.

What's New in GnuPG-2.1

  • The file "secring.gpg" is not anymore used to store the secret keys. Merging of secret keys is now supported.

  • All support for PGP-2 keys has been removed for security reasons.

  • The standard key generation interface is now much leaner. This will help a new user to quickly generate a suitable key.

  • Support for Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) is now available.

  • Commands to create and sign keys from the command line without any extra prompts are now available.

  • The Pinentry may now show the new passphrase entry and the passphrase confirmation entry in one dialog.

  • There is no more need to manually start the gpg-agent. It is now started by any part of GnuPG as needed.

  • Problems with importing keys with the same long key id have been addressed.

  • The Dirmngr is now part of GnuPG proper and also takes care of accessing keyserver.

  • Keyserver pools are now handled in a smarter way.

  • A new format for locally storing the public keys is now used. This considerable speeds up operations on large keyrings.

  • Revocation certificates are now created by default.

  • Card support has been updated, new readers and token types are supported.

  • The format of the key listing has been changed to better identify the properties of a key.

  • The gpg-agent may now be used on Windows as a Pageant replacement for Putty in the same way it is used for years on Unix as ssh-agent replacement.

  • Creation of X.509 certificates has been improved. It is now also possible to export them directly in PKCS#8 and PEM format for use on TLS servers.

A detailed description of the changes can be found at https://gnupg.org/faq/whats-new-in-2.1.html .

Getting the Software

Please follow the instructions found at https://gnupg.org/download/ or read on:

GnuPG 2.1.0 may be downloaded from one of the GnuPG mirror sites or direct from its primary FTP server. The list of mirrors can be found at https://gnupg.org/mirrors.html . Note that GnuPG is not available at ftp.gnu.org.

On ftp.gnupg.org you find these files:

ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gnupg/gnupg-2.1.0.tar.bz2 (3039k) ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gnupg/gnupg-2.1.0.tar.bz2.sig

This is the GnuPG 2.1 source code compressed using BZIP2 and its OpenPGP signature.

ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/binary/gnupg-w32-2.1.0_20141105.exe (6225k) ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/binary/gnupg-w32-2.1.0_20141105.exe.sig

This is an experimental installer for Windows including GPA as graphical key manager and GpgEX as an Explorer extension. Please de-install an already installed Gpg4win version before trying this installer. This binary version has not been tested very well, thus it is likely that you will run into problems. The complete source code for the software included in this installer is in the same directory; use the suffix ".tar.xz" instead of ".exe".

Although several beta versions have been released over the course of the last years, no extensive public field test has been done. Thus it is likely that bugs will show up. Please check the mailing list archives and the new wiki https://wiki.gnupg.org for latest information on known problems and workaround.

Checking the Integrity

In order to check that the version of GnuPG which you are going to install is an original and unmodified one, you can do it in one of the following ways:

  • If you already have a version of GnuPG installed, you can simply verify the supplied signature. For example to verify the signature of the file gnupg-2.1.0.tar.bz2 you would use this command:

    gpg --verify gnupg-2.1.0.tar.bz2.sig

    This checks whether the signature file matches the source file. You should see a message indicating that the signature is good and made by one or more of the release signing keys. Make sure that this is a valid key, either by matching the shown fingerprint against a trustworthy list of valid release signing keys or by checking that the key has been signed by trustworthy other keys. See below for information on the signing keys.

  • If you are not able to use an existing version of GnuPG, you have to verify the SHA-1 checksum. On Unix systems the command to do this is either "sha1sum" or "shasum". Assuming you downloaded the file gnupg-2.1.0.tar.bz2, you would run the command like this:

    sha1sum gnupg-2.1.0.tar.bz2

    and check that the output matches the first line from the following list:

2fcd0ca6889ef6cb59e3275e8411f8b7778c2f33 gnupg-2.1.0.tar.bz2 9907cb6509a0e63331b27a92e25c1ef956caaf3b gnupg-w32-2.1.0_20141105.exe 28dc1365292c61fbb2bbae730d4158f425463c91 gnupg-w32-2.1.0_20141105.tar.xz

Release Signing Keys

To guarantee that a downloaded GnuPG version has not been tampered by malicious entities we provide signature files for all tarballs and binary versions. The keys are also signed by the long term keys of their respective owners. Current releases are signed by one or more of these four keys:

2048R/4F25E3B6 2011-01-12 [expires: 2019-12-31] Key fingerprint = D869 2123 C406 5DEA 5E0F 3AB5 249B 39D2 4F25 E3B6 Werner Koch (dist sig)

rsa2048/E0856959 2014-10-29 [expires: 2019-12-31] Key fingerprint = 46CC 7308 65BB 5C78 EBAB ADCF 0437 6F3E E085 6959 David Shaw (GnuPG Release Signing Key) <dshaw 'at' jabberwocky.com>

rsa2048/33BD3F06 2014-10-29 [expires: 2016-10-28] Key fingerprint = 031E C253 6E58 0D8E A286 A9F2 2071 B08A 33BD 3F06 NIIBE Yutaka (GnuPG Release Key) <gniibe 'at' fsij.org>

rsa2048/7EFD60D9 2014-10-19 [expires: 2020-12-31] Key fingerprint = D238 EA65 D64C 67ED 4C30 73F2 8A86 1B1C 7EFD 60D9 Werner Koch (Release Signing Key)

You may retrieve these files from the keyservers using this command

gpg --recv-keys 249B39D24F25E3B6 04376F3EE0856959
2071B08A33BD3F06 8A861B1C7EFD60D9

The keys are also available at https://gnupg.org/signature_key.html and in the released GnuPG tarball in the file g10/distsigkey.gpg . Note that this mail has been signed using my standard PGP key.

Internationalization

This new branch of GnuPG has support for 4 languages: French, German, Japanese, and Ukrainian. More translations can be expected with the next point releases.

Documentation

If you used GnuPG in the past you should read the description of changes and new features at doc/whats-new-in-2.1.txt or online at

https://gnupg.org/faq/whats-new-in-2.1.html

The file gnupg.info has the complete user manual of the system. Separate man pages are included as well but they have not all the details available in the manual. It is also possible to read the complete manual online in HTML format at

https://gnupg.org/documentation/manuals/gnupg/

or in Portable Document Format at

https://gnupg.org/documentation/manuals/gnupg.pdf .

The chapters on gpg-agent, gpg and gpgsm include information on how to set up the whole thing. You may also want search the GnuPG mailing list archives or ask on the gnupg-users mailing lists for advise on how to solve problems. Many of the new features are around for several years and thus enough public knowledge is already available.

Support

Please consult the archive of the gnupg-users mailing list before reporting a bug https://gnupg.org/documentation/mailing-lists.html. We suggest to send bug reports for a new release to this list in favor of filing a bug at https://bugs.gnupg.org. For commercial support requests we keep a list of known service companies at:

https://gnupg.org/service.html

The driving force behind the development of GnuPG is the company of its principal author, Werner Koch. Maintenance and improvement of GnuPG and related software takes up most of their resources. To allow him to continue this work he kindly asks to either purchase a support contract, engage g10 Code for custom enhancements, or to donate money:

https://gnupg.org/donate/

Thanks

We have to thank all the people who helped with this release, be it testing, coding, translating, suggesting, auditing, administering the servers, spreading the word, and answering questions on the mailing lists. A final big Thank You goes to Hal Finney, who too early passed away this year. Hal worked on PGP and helped to make OpenPGP a great standard; it has been a pleasure having worked with him.