Mailing List Archive: Re: PGP4Pine and GPG v0.4.1

Re: PGP4Pine and GPG v0.4.1

Oct 11, 1998, 10:05 PM

Post #1 of 3 (482 views)

On Sun, 11 Oct 1998, you wrote:
>G'day. PGP4Pine doesn't seem to be parsing the secret keyring correctly -- perhaps the format has changed since the versions of gpg it officially supports?
>
>Anyhow, the new format goes like this:
>
>sec::1024:17:0123456789ABCDEF:1998-10-09:0:::Charles Duffy <cduffy@bigfoot.com>:ssb::1024:16:040125C603C4A817:1998-10-09:0:::

Okay, was the format for this changed? I used to use what is "0123456789ABCDEF"
for the keyID, however, has that changed, or did this user be the lucky
recipient of a valid keyID that looks like that? Also, can anyone tell me what
each of those fields mean? I know some of them, but what's ssb? or the 17 at
the beginning? Or the blank fields? Thanks.

>If there are any spaces in there, they were placed during mail-handling; it should all be one string.
>
>Thanks for the useful program; I hope I'll be able to use it with gpg 0.4.1 (which I personally have had no problems with) soon.
--

Chris Wiegand

'If Bill Gates had a dime for every time Windows crashed...
... Oh wait a minute, he already does...' - Anonymous

Linux \'lih-nucks\ n.: Antidote to the computer viri known as Windows.

Re: PGP4Pine and GPG v0.4.1 [ In reply to ]

wk at isil

Oct 12, 1998, 12:34 AM

Post #2 of 3 (477 views)

Permalink

Chris Wiegand <cwiegand@urgentmail.com> writes:

> >Anyhow, the new format goes like this:
> >
> >sec::1024:17:0123456789ABCDEF:1998-10-09:0:::Charles Duffy <cduffy@bigfoot.com>:ssb::1024:16:040125C603C4A817:1998-10-09:0:::

But there is a LF before the ssb.

Okay, here is a description:

sec::1024:17:6C7EE1B8621CC013:1998-07-07:0:::Werner Koch <werner.koch@guug.de>:
ssb::1536:20:5CE086B5B5A18FF4:1998-07-07:0:::

1. Field: Type of record
pub = public key
sub = subkey (secondary key)
sec = secret key
ssb = secret subkey (secondary key)
uid = user id (only field 10 is used).
fpr = fingerprint: (fingerprint is in field 10)

2. Field: A letter describing the calculated trust, see doc/FAQ
(not used for secret keys)
3. Field: length of key in bits.
4. Field: Algorithm: 1 = RSA
16 = ElGamal (encrypt only)
17 = DSA (sometimes called DH, sign only)
20 = ElGamal (sign and encrypt)
5. Field: KeyID
6. Field: Creation Date (in UTC)
7. Field: key expieres n days after creation.
(I will change this to a key exiration date)
8. Field: Local ID: record number of the dir record in the trustdb
this value is only valid as long as the trustdb is not
deleted. May be later used to lookup the key: You will be
able to use "#<local-id> as the user id. This is needed
because keyids may not be unique - a program may use this
number to access keys later.
9. Field: Ownertrust (primary public keys only)
10. Field: User-ID. The value is quoted like a C string to avoid
control characters (the colon is quoted "\x3a").

More fields may be added later.

[I've copied this to doc/DETAILS]

Hope this helps,

Werner

Re: PGP4Pine and GPG v0.4.1 [ In reply to ]

wk at isil

Oct 12, 1998, 12:41 AM

Post #3 of 3 (478 views)

Permalink

Chris Wiegand <cwiegand@urgentmail.com> writes:

> >sec::1024:17:0123456789ABCDEF:1998-10-09:0:::Charles Duffy <cduffy@bigfoot.com>:ssb::1024:16:040125C603C4A817:1998-10-09:0:::
>
> Okay, was the format for this changed? I used to use what is "0123456789ABCDEF"
> for the keyID, however, has that changed, or did this user be the lucky
> recipient of a valid keyID that looks like that? Also, can anyone tell me what

You are joking, right? It is more than unlikely that you will ever
see such a keyid - it is easy to make such a keyid for RSA keys but
not for DSA (or any other algorithms used with packet version 4).
Please run:

gpg --list-secret-keys --with-colons --fingerprint

and you should see an additional line starting with "fpr" with the
fingerprint: The last 8 bytes should be the same as the key ID.

Werner