I m trying to replace my old OpenPGP key with a new one. The old key wasn t compromised or lost or anything bad. Is still valid, but I plan to get rid of it soon. It was created in 2013. The new key id fingerprint is: AA66280D4EF0BFCC6BFC2104DA5ECB231C8F04C4 I plan to use the new key for things like encrypted emails, uploads to the Debian archive, and more. Also, the new key includes an identity with a newer personal email address I plan to use soon: arturo.bg@arturo.bg The new key has been uploaded to some public keyservers. If you would like to sign the new key, please follow the steps in the Debian wiki. If you are curious about what that long code block contains, check this https://cirw.in/gpg-decoder/ For the record, the old key fingerprint is: DD9861AB23DC3333892E07A968E713981D1515F8 Cheers!

Because posting private keys on the Internet is a bad idea, some people like to redact their private keys, so that it looks kinda-sorta like a private key, but it isn t actually giving away anything secret. Unfortunately, due to the way that private keys are represented, it is easy to redact a key in such a way that it doesn t actually redact anything at all. RSA private keys are particularly bad at this, but the problem can (potentially) apply to other keys as well. I ll show you a bit of Inside Baseball with key formats, and then demonstrate the practical implications. Finally, we ll go through a practical worked example from an actual not-really-redacted key I recently stumbled across in my travels.

The Private Lives of Private Keys Here is what a typical private key looks like, when you come across it:

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
MGICAQACEQCxjdTmecltJEz2PLMpS4BXAgMBAAECEDKtuwD17gpagnASq1zQTYEC
CQDVTYVsjjF7IQIJANUYZsIjRsR3AgkAkahDUXL0RSECCB78r2SnsJC9AghaOK3F
sKoELg==
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

Obviously, there s some hidden meaning in there computers don t encrypt things by shouting BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY! , after all. What is between the BEGIN/END lines above is, in fact, a base64-encoded DER format ASN.1 structure representing a PKCS#1 private key. In simple terms, it s a list of numbers very important numbers. The list of numbers is, in order:

• A version number (0);
• The public modulus , commonly referred to as n ;
• The public exponent , or e (which is almost always 65,537, for various unimportant reasons);
• The private exponent , or d ;
• The two private primes , or p and q ;
• Two exponents, which are known as dmp1 and dmq1 ; and
• A coefficient, known as iqmp .

Why Is This a Problem? The thing is, only three of those numbers are actually required in a private key. The rest, whilst useful to allow the RSA encryption and decryption to be more efficient, aren t necessary. The three absolutely required values are e, p, and q. Of the other numbers, most of them are at least about the same size as each of p and q. So of the total data in an RSA key, less than a quarter of the data is required. Let me show you with the above toy key, by breaking it down piece by piece¹:

• MGI DER for this is a sequence
• CAQ version (0)
• CxjdTmecltJEz2PLMpS4BX n
• AgMBAA e
• ECEDKtuwD17gpagnASq1zQTY d
• ECCQDVTYVsjjF7IQ p
• IJANUYZsIjRsR3 q
• AgkAkahDUXL0RS dmp1
• ECCB78r2SnsJC9 dmq1
• AghaOK3FsKoELg== iqmp

Remember that in order to reconstruct all of these values, all I need are e, p, and q and e is pretty much always 65,537. So I could redact almost all of this key, and still give all the important, private bits of this key. Let me show you:

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
..............................................................EC
CQDVTYVsjjF7IQIJANUYZsIjRsR3....................................
........
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

Now, I doubt that anyone is going to redact a key precisely like this but then again, this isn t a typical RSA key. They usually look a lot more like this:

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----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-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

People typically redact keys by deleting whole lines, and usually replacing them with [...] and the like. But only about 345 of those 1588 characters (excluding the header and footer) are required to construct the entire key. You can redact about 4/5ths of that giant blob of stuff, and your private parts (or at least, those of your key) are still left uncomfortably exposed.

But Wait! There s More! Remember how I said that everything in the key other than e, p, and q could be derived from those three numbers? Let s talk about one of those numbers: n. This is known as the public modulus (because, along with e, it is also present in the public key). It is very easy to calculate: n = p * q. It is also very early in the key (the second number, in fact). Since n = p * q, it follows that q = n / p. Thus, as long as the key is intact up to p, you can derive q by simple division.

Real World Redaction At this point, I d like to introduce an acquaintance of mine: Mr. Johan Finn. He is the proud owner of the GitHub repo johanfinn/scripts. For a while, his repo contained a script that contained a poorly-redacted private key. He since deleted it, by making a new commit, but of course because git never really deletes anything, it s still available. Of course, Mr. Finn may delete the repo, or force-push a new history without that commit, so here is the redacted private key, with a bit of the surrounding shell script, for our illustrative pleasure:

#Add private key to .ssh folder
cd /home/johan/.ssh/
echo  "-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
 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:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::.::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::.::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLlL
 
 
 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-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----" >> id_rsa

Now, if you try to reconstruct this key by removing the obvious garbage lines (the ones that are all repeated characters, some of which aren t even valid base64 characters), it still isn t a key at least, openssl pkey doesn t want anything to do with it. The key is very much still in there, though, as we shall soon see. Using a gem I wrote and a quick bit of Ruby, we can extract a complete private key. The irb session looks something like this:

>> require "derparse"
>> b64 = <<EOF
MIIJKgIBAAKCAgEAxEVih1JGb8gu/Fm4AZh+ZwJw/pjzzliWrg4mICFt1g7SmIE2
TCQMKABdwd11wOFKCPc/UzRH/fHuQcvWrpbOSdqev/zKff9iedKw/YygkMeIRaXB
fYELqvUAOJ8PPfDm70st9GJRhjGgo5+L3cJB2gfgeiDNHzaFvapRSU0oMGQX+kI9
ezsjDAn+0Pp+r3h/u1QpLSH4moRFGF4omNydI+3iTGB98/EzuNhRBHRNq4oBV5SG
Pq/A1bem2ninnoEaQ+OPESxYzDz3Jy9jV0W/6LvtJ844m+XX69H5fqq5dy55z6DW
sGKn78ULPVZPsYH5Y7C+CM6GAn4nYCpau0t52sqsY5epXdeYx4Dc+Wm0CjXrUDEe
Egl4loPKDxJkQqQ/MQiz6Le/UK9vEmnWn1TRXK3ekzNV4NgDfJANBQobOpwt8WVB
rbsC0ON7n680RQnl7PltK9P1AQW5vHsahkoixk/BhcwhkrkZGyDIl9g8Q/Euyoq3
eivKPLz7/rhDE7C1BzFy7v8AjC3w7i9QeHcWOZFAXo5hiDasIAkljDOsdfD4tP5/
wSO6E6pjL3kJ+RH2FCHd7ciQb+IcuXbku64ln8gab4p8jLa/mcMI+V3eWYnZ82Yu
axsa85hAe4wb60cp/rCJo7ihhDTTvGooqtTisOv2nSvCYpcW9qbL6cGjAXECAwEA
AQKCAgEAjz6wnWDP5Y9ts2FrqUZ5ooamnzpUXlpLhrbu3m5ncl4ZF5LfH+QDN0Kl
KvONmHsUhJynC/vROybSJBU4Fu4bms1DJY3C39h/L7g00qhLG7901pgWMpn3QQtU
4P49qpBii20MGhuTsmQQALtV4kB/vTgYfinoawpo67cdYmk8lqzGzzB/HKxZdNTq
s+zOfxRr7PWMo9LyVRuKLjGyYXZJ/coFaobWBi8Y96Rw5NZZRYQQXLIalC/Dhndm
AHckpstEtx2i8f6yxEUOgPvV/gD7Akn92RpqOGW0g/kYpXjGqZQy9PVHGy61sInY
HSkcOspIkJiS6WyJY9JcvJPM6ns4b84GE9qoUlWVF3RWJk1dqYCw5hz4U8LFyxsF
R6WhYiImvjxBLpab55rSqbGkzjI2z+ucDZyl1gqIv9U6qceVsgRyuqdfVN4deU22
LzO5IEDhnGdFqg9KQY7u8zm686Ejs64T1sh0y4GOmGsSg+P6nsqkdlXH8C+Cf03F
lqPFg8WQC7ojl/S8dPmkT5tcJh3BPwIWuvbtVjFOGQc8x0lb+NwK8h2Nsn6LNazS
0H90adh/IyYX4sBMokrpxAi+gMAWiyJHIHLeH2itNKtAQd3qQowbrWNswJSgJzsT
JuJ7uqRKAFkE6nCeAkuj/6KHHMPsfCAffVdyGaWqhoxmPOrnVgECggEBAOrCCwiC
XxwUgjOfOKx68siFJLfHf4vPo42LZOkAQq5aUmcWHbJVXmoxLYSczyAROopY0wd6
Dx8rqnpO7OtZsdJMeBSHbMVKoBZ77hiCQlrljcj12moFaEAButLCdZFsZW4zF/sx
kWIAaPH9vc4MvHHyvyNoB3yQRdevu57X7xGf9UxWuPil/jvdbt9toaraUT6rUBWU
GYPNKaLFsQzKsFWAzp5RGpASkhuiBJ0Qx3cfLyirjrKqTipe3o3gh/5RSHQ6VAhz
gdUG7WszNWk8FDCL6RTWzPOrbUyJo/wz1kblsL3vhV7ldEKFHeEjsDGroW2VUFlS
asAHNvM4/uYcOSECggEBANYH0427qZtLVuL97htXW9kCAT75xbMwgRskAH4nJDlZ
IggDErmzBhtrHgR+9X09iL47jr7dUcrVNPHzK/WXALFSKzXhkG/yAgmt3r14WgJ6
5y7010LlPFrzaNEyO/S4ISuBLt4cinjJsrFpoo0WI8jXeM5ddG6ncxdurKXMymY7
EOF
>> b64 += <<EOF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>> der = b64.unpack("m").first
>> c = DerParse.new(der).first_node.first_child
>> version = c.value
=> 0
>> c = c.next_node
>> n = c.value
=> 80071596234464993385068908004931... # (etc)
>> c = c.next_node
>> e = c.value
=> 65537
>> c = c.next_node
>> d = c.value
=> 58438813486895877116761996105770... # (etc)
>> c = c.next_node
>> p = c.value
=> 29635449580247160226960937109864... # (etc)
>> c = c.next_node
>> q = c.value
=> 27018856595256414771163410576410... # (etc)

What I ve done, in case you don t speak Ruby, is take the two chunks of plausible-looking base64 data, chuck them together into a variable named b64, unbase64 it into a variable named der, pass that into a new DerParse instance, and then walk the DER value tree until I got all the values I need. Interestingly, the q value actually traverses the split in the two chunks, which means that there s always the possibility that there are lines missing from the key. However, since p and q are supposed to be prime, we can sanity check them to see if corruption is likely to have occurred:

>> require "openssl"
>> OpenSSL::BN.new(p).prime?
=> true
>> OpenSSL::BN.new(q).prime?
=> true

Excellent! The chances of a corrupted file producing valid-but-incorrect prime numbers isn t huge, so we can be fairly confident that we ve got the real p and q. Now, with the help of another one of my creations we can use e, p, and q to create a fully-operational battle key:

>> require "openssl/pkey/rsa"
>> k = OpenSSL::PKey::RSA.from_factors(p, q, e)
=> #<OpenSSL::PKey::RSA:0x0000559d5903cd38>
>> k.valid?
=> true
>> k.verify(OpenSSL::Digest::SHA256.new, k.sign(OpenSSL::Digest::SHA256.new, "bob"), "bob")
=> true

and there you have it. One fairly redacted-looking private key brought back to life by maths and far too much free time. Sorry Mr. Finn, I hope you re not still using that key on anything Internet-facing.

What About Other Key Types? EC keys are very different beasts, but they have much the same problems as RSA keys. A typical EC key contains both private and public data, and the public portion is twice the size so only about 1/3 of the data in the key is private material. It is quite plausible that you can redact an EC key and leave all the actually private bits exposed.

What Do We Do About It? In short: don t ever try and redact real private keys. For documentation purposes, just put KEY GOES HERE in the appropriate spot, or something like that. Store your secrets somewhere that isn t a public (or even private!) git repo. Generating a dummy private key and sticking it in there isn t a great idea, for different reasons: people have this odd habit of reusing demo keys in real life. There s no need to encourage that sort of thing.

---

1. Technically the pieces aren t 100% aligned with the underlying DER, because of how base64 works. I felt it was easier to understand if I stuck to chopping up the base64, rather than decoding into DER and then chopping up the DER.

I installed Debian 9.0 Stretch on my Lenovo X201 laptop today. Installation went smooth, as usual. GnuPG/SSH with an OpenPGP smartcard I use a YubiKey NEO does not work out of the box with GNOME though. I wrote about how to fix OpenPGP smartcards under GNOME with Debian 8.0 Jessie earlier, and I thought I d do a similar blog post for Debian 9.0 Stretch . The situation is slightly different than before (e.g., GnuPG works better but SSH doesn t) so there is some progress. May I hope that Debian 10.0 Buster gets this right? Pointers to which package in Debian should have a bug report tracking this issue is welcome (or a pointer to an existing bug report). After first login, I attempt to use gpg --card-status to check if GnuPG can talk to the smartcard.

jas@latte:~$ gpg --card-status
gpg: error getting version from 'scdaemon': No SmartCard daemon
gpg: OpenPGP card not available: No SmartCard daemon
jas@latte:~$ 

This fails because scdaemon is not installed. Isn t a smartcard common enough so that this should be installed by default on a GNOME Desktop Debian installation? Anyway, install it as follows.

root@latte:~# apt-get install scdaemon

Then try again.

jas@latte:~$ gpg --card-status
gpg: selecting openpgp failed: No such device
gpg: OpenPGP card not available: No such device
jas@latte:~$ 

I believe scdaemon here attempts to use its internal CCID implementation, and I do not know why it does not work. At this point I often recall that want pcscd installed since I work with smartcards in general.

root@latte:~# apt-get install pcscd

Now gpg --card-status works!

jas@latte:~$ gpg --card-status
Reader ...........: Yubico Yubikey NEO CCID 00 00
Application ID ...: D2760001240102000006017403230000
Version ..........: 2.0
Manufacturer .....: Yubico
Serial number ....: 01740323
Name of cardholder: Simon Josefsson
Language prefs ...: sv
Sex ..............: male
URL of public key : https://josefsson.org/54265e8c.txt
Login data .......: jas
Signature PIN ....: not forced
Key attributes ...: rsa2048 rsa2048 rsa2048
Max. PIN lengths .: 127 127 127
PIN retry counter : 3 3 3
Signature counter : 8358
Signature key ....: 9941 5CE1 905D 0E55 A9F8  8026 860B 7FBB 32F8 119D
      created ....: 2014-06-22 19:19:04
Encryption key....: DC9F 9B7D 8831 692A A852  D95B 9535 162A 78EC D86B
      created ....: 2014-06-22 19:19:20
Authentication key: 2E08 856F 4B22 2148 A40A  3E45 AF66 08D7 36BA 8F9B
      created ....: 2014-06-22 19:19:41
General key info..: sub  rsa2048/860B7FBB32F8119D 2014-06-22 Simon Josefsson 
sec#  rsa3744/0664A76954265E8C  created: 2014-06-22  expires: 2017-09-04
ssb>  rsa2048/860B7FBB32F8119D  created: 2014-06-22  expires: 2017-09-04
                                card-no: 0006 01740323
ssb>  rsa2048/9535162A78ECD86B  created: 2014-06-22  expires: 2017-09-04
                                card-no: 0006 01740323
ssb>  rsa2048/AF6608D736BA8F9B  created: 2014-06-22  expires: 2017-09-04
                                card-no: 0006 01740323
jas@latte:~$ 

Using the key will not work though.

jas@latte:~$ echo foo gpg -a --sign
gpg: no default secret key: No secret key
gpg: signing failed: No secret key
jas@latte:~$ 

This is because the public key and the secret key stub are not available.

jas@latte:~$ gpg --list-keys
jas@latte:~$ gpg --list-secret-keys
jas@latte:~$ 

You need to import the key for this to work. I have some vague memory that gpg --card-status was supposed to do this, but I may be wrong.

jas@latte:~$ gpg --recv-keys 9AA9BDB11BB1B99A21285A330664A76954265E8C
gpg: failed to start the dirmngr '/usr/bin/dirmngr': No such file or directory
gpg: connecting dirmngr at '/run/user/1000/gnupg/S.dirmngr' failed: No such file or directory
gpg: keyserver receive failed: No dirmngr
jas@latte:~$ 

Surprisingly, dirmngr is also not shipped by default so it has to be installed manually.

root@latte:~# apt-get install dirmngr

Below I proceed to trust the clouds to find my key.

jas@latte:~$ gpg --recv-keys 9AA9BDB11BB1B99A21285A330664A76954265E8C
gpg: key 0664A76954265E8C: public key "Simon Josefsson " imported
gpg: no ultimately trusted keys found
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1
jas@latte:~$ 

Now the public key and the secret key stub are available locally.

jas@latte:~$ gpg --list-keys
/home/jas/.gnupg/pubring.kbx
----------------------------
pub   rsa3744 2014-06-22 [SC] [expires: 2017-09-04]
      9AA9BDB11BB1B99A21285A330664A76954265E8C
uid           [ unknown] Simon Josefsson 
uid           [ unknown] Simon Josefsson 
sub   rsa2048 2014-06-22 [S] [expires: 2017-09-04]
sub   rsa2048 2014-06-22 [E] [expires: 2017-09-04]
sub   rsa2048 2014-06-22 [A] [expires: 2017-09-04]
jas@latte:~$ gpg --list-secret-keys
/home/jas/.gnupg/pubring.kbx
----------------------------
sec#  rsa3744 2014-06-22 [SC] [expires: 2017-09-04]
      9AA9BDB11BB1B99A21285A330664A76954265E8C
uid           [ unknown] Simon Josefsson 
uid           [ unknown] Simon Josefsson 
ssb>  rsa2048 2014-06-22 [S] [expires: 2017-09-04]
ssb>  rsa2048 2014-06-22 [E] [expires: 2017-09-04]
ssb>  rsa2048 2014-06-22 [A] [expires: 2017-09-04]
jas@latte:~$ 

I am now able to sign data with the smartcard, yay!

jas@latte:~$ echo foo gpg -a --sign
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
owGbwMvMwMHYxl2/2+iH4FzG01xJDJFu3+XT8vO5OhmNWRgYORhkxRRZZjrGPJwQ
yxe68keDGkwxKxNIJQMXpwBMRJGd/a98NMPJQt6jaoyO9yUVlmS7s7qm+Kjwr53G
uq9wQ+z+/kOdk9w4Q39+SMvc+mEV72kuH9WaW9bVqj80jN77hUbfTn5mffu2/aVL
h/IneTfaOQaukHij/P8A0//Phg/maWbONUjjySrl+a3tP8ll6/oeCd8g/aeTlH79
i0naanjW4bjv9wnvGuN+LPHLmhUc2zvZdyK3xttN/roHvsdX3f53yTAxeInvXZmd
x7W0/hVPX33Y4nT877T/ak4L057IBSavaPVcf4yhglVI8XuGgaTP666Wuslbliy4
5W5eLasbd33Xd/W0hTINznuz0kJ4r1bLHZW9fvjLduMPq5rS2co9tvW8nX9rhZ/D
zycu/QA=
=I8rt
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----
jas@latte:~$ 

Encrypting to myself will not work smoothly though.

jas@latte:~$ echo foo gpg -a --encrypt -r simon@josefsson.org
gpg: 9535162A78ECD86B: There is no assurance this key belongs to the named user
sub  rsa2048/9535162A78ECD86B 2014-06-22 Simon Josefsson 
 Primary key fingerprint: 9AA9 BDB1 1BB1 B99A 2128  5A33 0664 A769 5426 5E8C
      Subkey fingerprint: DC9F 9B7D 8831 692A A852  D95B 9535 162A 78EC D86B
It is NOT certain that the key belongs to the person named
in the user ID.  If you *really* know what you are doing,
you may answer the next question with yes.
Use this key anyway? (y/N) 
gpg: signal Interrupt caught ... exiting
jas@latte:~$ 

The reason is that the newly imported key has unknown trust settings. I update the trust settings on my key to fix this, and encrypting now works without a prompt.

jas@latte:~$ gpg --edit-key 9AA9BDB11BB1B99A21285A330664A76954265E8C
gpg (GnuPG) 2.1.18; Copyright (C) 2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
Secret key is available.
pub  rsa3744/0664A76954265E8C
     created: 2014-06-22  expires: 2017-09-04  usage: SC  
     trust: unknown       validity: unknown
ssb  rsa2048/860B7FBB32F8119D
     created: 2014-06-22  expires: 2017-09-04  usage: S   
     card-no: 0006 01740323
ssb  rsa2048/9535162A78ECD86B
     created: 2014-06-22  expires: 2017-09-04  usage: E   
     card-no: 0006 01740323
ssb  rsa2048/AF6608D736BA8F9B
     created: 2014-06-22  expires: 2017-09-04  usage: A   
     card-no: 0006 01740323
[ unknown] (1). Simon Josefsson 
[ unknown] (2)  Simon Josefsson 
gpg> trust
pub  rsa3744/0664A76954265E8C
     created: 2014-06-22  expires: 2017-09-04  usage: SC  
     trust: unknown       validity: unknown
ssb  rsa2048/860B7FBB32F8119D
     created: 2014-06-22  expires: 2017-09-04  usage: S   
     card-no: 0006 01740323
ssb  rsa2048/9535162A78ECD86B
     created: 2014-06-22  expires: 2017-09-04  usage: E   
     card-no: 0006 01740323
ssb  rsa2048/AF6608D736BA8F9B
     created: 2014-06-22  expires: 2017-09-04  usage: A   
     card-no: 0006 01740323
[ unknown] (1). Simon Josefsson 
[ unknown] (2)  Simon Josefsson 
Please decide how far you trust this user to correctly verify other users' keys
(by looking at passports, checking fingerprints from different sources, etc.)
  1 = I don't know or won't say
  2 = I do NOT trust
  3 = I trust marginally
  4 = I trust fully
  5 = I trust ultimately
  m = back to the main menu
Your decision? 5
Do you really want to set this key to ultimate trust? (y/N) y
pub  rsa3744/0664A76954265E8C
     created: 2014-06-22  expires: 2017-09-04  usage: SC  
     trust: ultimate      validity: unknown
ssb  rsa2048/860B7FBB32F8119D
     created: 2014-06-22  expires: 2017-09-04  usage: S   
     card-no: 0006 01740323
ssb  rsa2048/9535162A78ECD86B
     created: 2014-06-22  expires: 2017-09-04  usage: E   
     card-no: 0006 01740323
ssb  rsa2048/AF6608D736BA8F9B
     created: 2014-06-22  expires: 2017-09-04  usage: A   
     card-no: 0006 01740323
[ unknown] (1). Simon Josefsson 
[ unknown] (2)  Simon Josefsson 
Please note that the shown key validity is not necessarily correct
unless you restart the program.
gpg> quit
jas@latte:~$ echo foo gpg -a --encrypt -r simon@josefsson.org
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
hQEMA5U1Fip47NhrAQgArTvAykj/YRhWVuXb6nzeEigtlvKFSmGHmbNkJgF5+r1/
/hWENR72wsb1L0ROaLIjM3iIwNmyBURMiG+xV8ZE03VNbJdORW+S0fO6Ck4FaIj8
iL2/CXyp1obq1xCeYjdPf2nrz/P2Evu69s1K2/0i9y2KOK+0+u9fEGdAge8Gup6y
PWFDFkNj2YiVa383BqJ+kV51tfquw+T4y5MfVWBoHlhm46GgwjIxXiI+uBa655IM
EgwrONcZTbAWSV4/ShhR9ug9AzGIJgpu9x8k2i+yKcBsgAh/+d8v7joUaPRZlGIr
kim217hpA3/VLIFxTTkkm/BO1KWBlblxvVaL3RZDDNI5AVp0SASswqBqT3W5ew+K
nKdQ6UTMhEFe8xddsLjkI9+AzHfiuDCDxnxNgI1haI6obp9eeouGXUKG
=s6kt
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----
jas@latte:~$ 

So everything is fine, isn t it? Alas, not quite.

jas@latte:~$ ssh-add -L
The agent has no identities.
jas@latte:~$ 

Tracking this down, I now realize that GNOME s keyring is used for SSH but GnuPG s gpg-agent is used for GnuPG. GnuPG uses the environment variable GPG_AGENT_INFO to connect to an agent, and SSH uses the SSH_AUTH_SOCK environment variable to find its agent. The filenames used below leak the knowledge that gpg-agent is used for GnuPG but GNOME keyring is used for SSH.

jas@latte:~$ echo $GPG_AGENT_INFO 
/run/user/1000/gnupg/S.gpg-agent:0:1
jas@latte:~$ echo $SSH_AUTH_SOCK 
/run/user/1000/keyring/ssh
jas@latte:~$ 

Here the same recipe as in my previous blog post works. This time GNOME keyring only has to be disabled for SSH. Disabling GNOME keyring is not sufficient, you also need gpg-agent to start with enable-ssh-support. The simplest way to achieve that is to add a line in ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf as follows. When you login, the script /etc/X11/Xsession.d/90gpg-agent will set the environment variables GPG_AGENT_INFO and SSH_AUTH_SOCK. The latter variable is only set if enable-ssh-support is mentioned in the gpg-agent configuration.

jas@latte:~$ mkdir ~/.config/autostart
jas@latte:~$ cp /etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-keyring-ssh.desktop ~/.config/autostart/
jas@latte:~$ echo 'Hidden=true' >> ~/.config/autostart/gnome-keyring-ssh.desktop 
jas@latte:~$ echo enable-ssh-support >> ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf 
jas@latte:~$ 

Log out from GNOME and log in again. Now you should see ssh-add -L working.

jas@latte:~$ ssh-add -L
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQDFP+UOTZJ+OXydpmbKmdGOVoJJz8se7lMs139T+TNLryk3EEWF+GqbB4VgzxzrGjwAMSjeQkAMb7Sbn+VpbJf1JDPFBHoYJQmg6CX4kFRaGZT6DHbYjgia59WkdkEYTtB7KPkbFWleo/RZT2u3f8eTedrP7dhSX0azN0lDuu/wBrwedzSV+AiPr10rQaCTp1V8sKbhz5ryOXHQW0Gcps6JraRzMW+ooKFX3lPq0pZa7qL9F6sE4sDFvtOdbRJoZS1b88aZrENGx8KSrcMzARq9UBn1plsEG4/3BRv/BgHHaF+d97by52R0VVyIXpLlkdp1Uk4D9cQptgaH4UAyI1vr cardno:000601740323
jas@latte:~$ 

Topics for further discussion or research include 1) whether scdaemon, dirmngr and/or pcscd should be pre-installed on Debian desktop systems; 2) whether gpg --card-status should attempt to import the public key and secret key stub automatically; 3) why GNOME keyring is used by default for SSH rather than gpg-agent; 4) whether GNOME keyring should support smartcards, or if it is better to always use gpg-agent for GnuPG/SSH, 5) if something could/should be done to automatically infer the trust setting for a secret key. Enjoy!

Debconf is a great opportunity to meet people in real life, to express and share ideas in a different way, and to work on all sort of stuff.

I therefore spent some time to finish a couple of features in the editor for sources.debian.net. Here are some of the changes:

• Compare the source file with that of another version of the package
• And in order to present that: tabs! editor tabs!
• at the same time: generated diffs are now presented in a new editor tab, from where you can download it or email it

Get it for chromium, and iceweasel.

If your browser performs automatic updates of the extensions (the default), you should soon be upgraded to version 0.1.0 or later, bringing all those changes to your browser.

Want to see more? multi-file editing? in-browser storage of the editing session? that and more can be done, so feel free to join me and contribute to the Debian sources online editor!