MIGRATE-PUBRING-FROM-CLASSICGeneral CommandMIGRATE-PUBRING-FROM-CLASSIC-GPG(1)
NAME
migrate-pubring-from-classic-gpg - Migrate a public keyring from "clas-
sic" to "modern" GnuPG
SYNOPSIS
migrate-pubring-from-classic-gpg [ GPGHOMEDIR | --default ]
DESCRIPTION
migrate-pubring-from-classic-gpg migrates the public keyring in GnuPG
home directory GPGHOMEDIR from the "classic" keyring format (pub-
ring.gpg) to the "modern" keybox format using GnuPG versions 2.1 or 2.2
(pubring.kbx).
Specifying --default selects the standard GnuPG home directory (looking
at $GNUPGHOME first, and falling back to ~/.gnupg if unset.
OPTIONS
-h, --help, --usage Output a short usage information.
DIAGNOSTICS
The program sends quite a bit of text (perhaps too much) to stderr.
During a migration, the tool backs up several pieces of data in a
timestamped subdirectory of the GPGHOMEDIR.
LIMITATIONS
The keybox format rejects a number of OpenPGP certificates that the
"classic" keyring format used to accept. These filters are defensive,
since the certificates rejected are unsafe -- either cryptographically
unsound, or dangerously non-performant. This means that some migra-
tions may produce warning messages about the migration being incom-
plete. This is generally a good thing!
Known limitations:
Flooded certificates
Some OpenPGP certificates have been flooded with bogus certifica-
tions as part of an attack on the SKS keyserver network (see
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-dkg-openpgp-abuse-resistant-key-
store-03#section-2.1).
The keybox format rejects import of any OpenPGP certificate larger
than 5MiB. As of GnuPG 2.2.17, if gpg encounters such a flooded
certificate will retry the import while stripping all third-party
certifications (see "self-sigs-only" in gpg(1)).
The typical error message when migrating a keyring with a flooded
certificate will be something like:
error writing keyring 'pubring.kbx': Provided object is too
large
OpenPGPv3 public keys (a.k.a. PGP-2 keys)
Modern OpenPGP implementations use so-called "OpenPGP v4" public
keys. Older versions of the public key format have serious known
problems. See https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4880#section-5.5.2
for more details about and reasons for v3 key deprecation.
The keybox format skips v3 keys entirely during migration, and
GnuPG will produce a message like:
skipped PGP-2 keys: 1
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
GNUPGHOME Selects the GnuPG home directory when set and --default is
given.
GPG The name of the gpg executable (defaults to gpg ).
SEE ALSO
gpg(1)
AUTHOR
Copyright (C) 2016 Daniel Kahn Gillmor for the Debian project. Please
report bugs via the Debian BTS.
April 201MIGRATE-PUBRING-FROM-CLASSIC-GPG(1)