gnupg: Dirmngr Options
3.2 Option Summary
==================
Note that all long options with the exception of '--options' and
'--homedir' may also be given in the configuration file after stripping
off the two leading dashes.
'--options FILE'
Reads configuration from FILE instead of from the default per-user
configuration file. The default configuration file is named
'dirmngr.conf' and expected in the home directory.
'--homedir DIR'
Set the name of the home directory to DIR. This option is only
effective when used on the command line. The default is the
directory named '.gnupg' directly below the home directory of the
user unless the environment variable 'GNUPGHOME' has been set in
which case its value will be used. Many kinds of data are stored
within this directory.
'-v'
'--verbose'
Outputs additional information while running. You can increase the
verbosity by giving several verbose commands to DIRMNGR, such as
'-vv'.
'--log-file FILE'
Append all logging output to FILE. This is very helpful in seeing
what the agent actually does. Use 'socket://' to log to socket.
'--debug-level LEVEL'
Select the debug level for investigating problems. LEVEL may be a
numeric value or by a keyword:
'none'
No debugging at all. A value of less than 1 may be used
instead of the keyword.
'basic'
Some basic debug messages. A value between 1 and 2 may be
used instead of the keyword.
'advanced'
More verbose debug messages. A value between 3 and 5 may be
used instead of the keyword.
'expert'
Even more detailed messages. A value between 6 and 8 may be
used instead of the keyword.
'guru'
All of the debug messages you can get. A value greater than 8
may be used instead of the keyword. The creation of hash
tracing files is only enabled if the keyword is used.
How these messages are mapped to the actual debugging flags is not
specified and may change with newer releases of this program. They
are however carefully selected to best aid in debugging.
'--debug FLAGS'
Set debugging flags. This option is only useful for debugging and
its behavior may change with a new release. All flags are or-ed
and may be given in C syntax (e.g. 0x0042) or as a comma separated
list of flag names. To get a list of all supported flags the
single word "help" can be used.
'--debug-all'
Same as '--debug=0xffffffff'
'--tls-debug LEVEL'
Enable debugging of the TLS layer at LEVEL. The details of the
debug level depend on the used TLS library and are not set in
stone.
'--debug-wait N'
When running in server mode, wait N seconds before entering the
actual processing loop and print the pid. This gives time to
attach a debugger.
'--disable-check-own-socket'
On some platforms 'dirmngr' is able to detect the removal of its
socket file and shutdown itself. This option disable this
self-test for debugging purposes.
'-s'
'--sh'
'-c'
'--csh'
Format the info output in daemon mode for use with the standard
Bourne shell respective the C-shell. The default is to guess it
based on the environment variable 'SHELL' which is in almost all
cases sufficient.
'--force'
Enabling this option forces loading of expired CRLs; this is only
useful for debugging.
'--use-tor'
'--no-use-tor'
The option '--use-tor' switches Dirmngr and thus GnuPG into "Tor
mode" to route all network access via Tor (an anonymity network).
Certain other features are disabled in this mode. The effect of
'--use-tor' cannot be overridden by any other command or even by
reloading dirmngr. The use of '--no-use-tor' disables the use of
Tor. The default is to use Tor if it is available on startup or
after reloading dirmngr.
'--standard-resolver'
This option forces the use of the system's standard DNS resolver
code. This is mainly used for debugging. Note that on Windows a
standard resolver is not used and all DNS access will return the
error "Not Implemented" if this option is used. Using this
together with enabled Tor mode returns the error "Not Enabled".
'--recursive-resolver'
When possible use a recursive resolver instead of a stub resolver.
'--resolver-timeout N'
Set the timeout for the DNS resolver to N seconds. The default are
30 seconds.
'--connect-timeout N'
'--connect-quick-timeout N'
Set the timeout for HTTP and generic TCP connection attempts to N
seconds. The value set with the quick variant is used when the
-quick option has been given to certain Assuan commands. The quick
value is capped at the value of the regular connect timeout. The
default values are 15 and 2 seconds. Note that the timeout values
are for each connection attempt; the connection code will attempt
to connect all addresses listed for a server.
'--listen-backlog N'
Set the size of the queue for pending connections. The default is
64.
'--allow-version-check'
Allow Dirmngr to connect to 'https://versions.gnupg.org' to get the
list of current software versions. On debian-packaged versions,
this option does nothing since software updates should be handled
by the distribution. See the option '--query-swdb' of the command
'gpgconf' for more details. Note, that regardless of this option a
version check can always be triggered using this command:
gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'loadswdb --force' /bye
'--keyserver NAME'
Use NAME as your keyserver. This is the server that 'gpg'
communicates with to receive keys, send keys, and search for keys.
The format of the NAME is a URI: 'scheme:[//]keyservername[:port]'
The scheme is the type of keyserver: "hkp" for the HTTP (or
compatible) keyservers, "ldap" for the LDAP keyservers, or "mailto"
for the Graff email keyserver. Note that your particular
installation of GnuPG may have other keyserver types available as
well. Keyserver schemes are case-insensitive. After the keyserver
name, optional keyserver configuration options may be provided.
These are the same as the '--keyserver-options' of 'gpg', but apply
only to this particular keyserver.
Most keyservers synchronize with each other, so there is generally
no need to send keys to more than one server. The keyserver
'hkp://keys.gnupg.net' uses round robin DNS to give a different
keyserver each time you use it.
If exactly two keyservers are configured and only one is a Tor
hidden service (.onion), Dirmngr selects the keyserver to use
depending on whether Tor is locally running or not. The check for
a running Tor is done for each new connection.
If no keyserver is explicitly configured, dirmngr will use the
built-in default of 'hkps://keys.openpgp.org'.
Note that the above default is a Debian-specific choice. Upstream
GnuPG prefers 'hkps://hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net'. See
/usr/share/doc/gpgconf/NEWS.Debian.gz for more details.
Windows users with a keyserver running on their Active Directory
should use 'ldap:///' for NAME to access this directory.
For accessing anonymous LDAP keyservers NAME is in general just a
'ldaps://ldap.example.com'. A BaseDN parameter should never be
specified. If authentication is required the value of NAME is for
example:
keyserver ldaps://ldap.example.com/????bindname=uid=USERNAME
%2Cou=GnuPG%20Users%2Cdc=example%2Cdc=com,password=PASSWORD
Put this all on one line without any spaces and keep the '%2C' as
given. Replace USERNAME, PASSWORD, and the 'dc' parts according to
the instructions received from the LDAP administrator. Note that
only simple authentication (i.e. cleartext passwords) is supported
and thus using ldaps is strongly suggested.
'--nameserver IPADDR'
In "Tor mode" Dirmngr uses a public resolver via Tor to resolve DNS
names. If the default public resolver, which is '8.8.8.8', shall
not be used a different one can be given using this option. Note
that a numerical IP address must be given (IPv6 or IPv4) and that
no error checking is done for IPADDR.
'--disable-ipv4'
'--disable-ipv6'
Disable the use of all IPv4 or IPv6 addresses.
'--disable-ldap'
Entirely disables the use of LDAP.
'--disable-http'
Entirely disables the use of HTTP.
'--ignore-http-dp'
When looking for the location of a CRL, the to be tested
certificate usually contains so called "CRL Distribution Point"
(DP) entries which are URLs describing the way to access the CRL.
The first found DP entry is used. With this option all entries
using the HTTP scheme are ignored when looking for a suitable DP.
'--ignore-ldap-dp'
This is similar to '--ignore-http-dp' but ignores entries using the
LDAP scheme. Both options may be combined resulting in ignoring
DPs entirely.
'--ignore-ocsp-service-url'
Ignore all OCSP URLs contained in the certificate. The effect is
to force the use of the default responder.
'--honor-http-proxy'
If the environment variable 'http_proxy' has been set, use its
value to access HTTP servers.
'--http-proxy HOST[:PORT]'
Use HOST and PORT to access HTTP servers. The use of this option
overrides the environment variable 'http_proxy' regardless whether
'--honor-http-proxy' has been set.
'--ldap-proxy HOST[:PORT]'
Use HOST and PORT to connect to LDAP servers. If PORT is omitted,
port 389 (standard LDAP port) is used. This overrides any
specified host and port part in a LDAP URL and will also be used if
host and port have been omitted from the URL.
'--only-ldap-proxy'
Never use anything else but the LDAP "proxy" as configured with
'--ldap-proxy'. Usually 'dirmngr' tries to use other configured
LDAP server if the connection using the "proxy" failed.
'--ldapserverlist-file FILE'
Read the list of LDAP servers to consult for CRLs and certificates
from file instead of the default per-user ldap server list file.
The default value for FILE is 'dirmngr_ldapservers.conf'.
This server list file contains one LDAP server per line in the
format
HOSTNAME:PORT:USERNAME:PASSWORD:BASE_DN
Lines starting with a '#' are comments.
Note that as usual all strings entered are expected to be UTF-8
encoded. Obviously this will lead to problems if the password has
originally been encoded as Latin-1. There is no other solution
here than to put such a password in the binary encoding into the
file (i.e. non-ascii characters won't show up readable).(1)
'--ldaptimeout SECS'
Specify the number of seconds to wait for an LDAP query before
timing out. The default are 15 seconds. 0 will never timeout.
'--add-servers'
This option makes dirmngr add any servers it discovers when
validating certificates against CRLs to the internal list of
servers to consult for certificates and CRLs.
This option is useful when trying to validate a certificate that
has a CRL distribution point that points to a server that is not
already listed in the ldapserverlist. Dirmngr will always go to
this server and try to download the CRL, but chances are high that
the certificate used to sign the CRL is located on the same server.
So if dirmngr doesn't add that new server to list, it will often
not be able to verify the signature of the CRL unless the
'--add-servers' option is used.
Note: The current version of dirmngr has this option disabled by
default.
'--allow-ocsp'
This option enables OCSP support if requested by the client.
OCSP requests are rejected by default because they may violate the
privacy of the user; for example it is possible to track the time
when a user is reading a mail.
'--ocsp-responder URL'
Use URL as the default OCSP Responder if the certificate does not
contain information about an assigned responder. Note, that
'--ocsp-signer' must also be set to a valid certificate.
'--ocsp-signer FPR|FILE'
Use the certificate with the fingerprint FPR to check the responses
of the default OCSP Responder. Alternatively a filename can be
given in which case the response is expected to be signed by one of
the certificates described in that file. Any argument which
contains a slash, dot or tilde is considered a filename. Usual
filename expansion takes place: A tilde at the start followed by a
slash is replaced by the content of 'HOME', no slash at start
describes a relative filename which will be searched at the home
directory. To make sure that the FILE is searched in the home
directory, either prepend the name with "./" or use a name which
contains a dot.
If a response has been signed by a certificate described by these
fingerprints no further check upon the validity of this certificate
is done.
The format of the FILE is a list of SHA-1 fingerprint, one per line
with optional colons between the bytes. Empty lines and lines
prefix with a hash mark are ignored.
'--ocsp-max-clock-skew N'
The number of seconds a skew between the OCSP responder and them
local clock is accepted. Default is 600 (10 minutes).
'--ocsp-max-period N'
Seconds a response is at maximum considered valid after the time
given in the thisUpdate field. Default is 7776000 (90 days).
'--ocsp-current-period N'
The number of seconds an OCSP response is considered valid after
the time given in the NEXT_UPDATE datum. Default is 10800 (3
hours).
'--max-replies N'
Do not return more that N items in one query. The default is 10.
'--ignore-cert-extension OID'
Add OID to the list of ignored certificate extensions. The OID is
expected to be in dotted decimal form, like '2.5.29.3'. This
option may be used more than once. Critical flagged certificate
extensions matching one of the OIDs in the list are treated as if
they are actually handled and thus the certificate won't be
rejected due to an unknown critical extension. Use this option
with care because extensions are usually flagged as critical for a
reason.
'--hkp-cacert FILE'
Use the root certificates in FILE for verification of the TLS
certificates used with 'hkps' (keyserver access over TLS). If the
file is in PEM format a suffix of '.pem' is expected for FILE.
This option may be given multiple times to add more root
certificates. Tilde expansion is supported.
If no 'hkp-cacert' directive is present, dirmngr will make a
reasonable choice: if the keyserver in question is the special pool
'hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net', it will use the bundled root
certificate for that pool. Otherwise, it will use the system CAs.
---------- Footnotes ----------
(1) The 'gpgconf' tool might be helpful for frontends as it enables
editing this configuration file using percent-escaped strings.