[[meta title="monkeysphere --gen-subkey seems to fail if no gpg-agent is running"]]
Consider the following transcript of a user who starts with no OpenPGP
key in the first place:
0 wt215@squeak:~$ monkeysphere gen-subkey
You have no secret key available. You should create an OpenPGP
key before joining the monkeysphere. You can do this with:
gpg --gen-key
255 wt215@squeak:~$ gpg --gen-key
gpg (GnuPG) 1.4.9; Copyright (C) 2008 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.
Please select what kind of key you want:
(1) DSA and Elgamal (default)
(2) DSA (sign only)
(5) RSA (sign only)
Your selection? 5
RSA keys may be between 1024 and 4096 bits long.
What keysize do you want? (2048) 1024
Requested keysize is 1024 bits
Please specify how long the key should be valid.
0 = key does not expire
<n> = key expires in n days
<n>w = key expires in n weeks
<n>m = key expires in n months
<n>y = key expires in n years
Key is valid for? (0) 1
Key expires at Sat 09 Aug 2008 09:41:34 AM EDT
Is this correct? (y/N) y
You need a user ID to identify your key; the software constructs the user ID
from the Real Name, Comment and Email Address in this form:
"Heinrich Heine (Der Dichter) <heinrichh@duesseldorf.de>"
Real name: Foo T. Bar
Email address: monkey@example.org
Comment: DO NOT USE!
You selected this USER-ID:
"Foo T. Bar (DO NOT USE!) <monkey@example.org>"
Change (N)ame, (C)omment, (E)mail or (O)kay/(Q)uit? o
You need a Passphrase to protect your secret key.
We need to generate a lot of random bytes. It is a good idea to perform
some other action (type on the keyboard, move the mouse, utilize the
disks) during the prime generation; this gives the random number
generator a better chance to gain enough entropy.
+++++
gpg: key A09F70B7 marked as ultimately trusted
public and secret key created and signed.
gpg: checking the trustdb
gpg: 3 marginal(s) needed, 1 complete(s) needed, PGP trust model
gpg: depth: 0 valid: 1 signed: 0 trust: 0-, 0q, 0n, 0m, 0f, 1u
gpg: next trustdb check due at 2008-08-09
pub 1024R/A09F70B7 2008-08-08 [expires: 2008-08-09]
Key fingerprint = C3D3 1063 7CA1 5809 9EB9 7A63 F4E4 8D01 A09F 70B7
uid Foo T. Bar (DO NOT USE!) <monkey@example.org>
Note that this key cannot be used for encryption. You may want to use
the command "--edit-key" to generate a subkey for this purpose.
0 wt215@squeak:~$ monkeysphere gen-subkey
Please specify how long the key should be valid.
0 = key does not expire
<n> = key expires in n days
<n>w = key expires in n weeks
<n>m = key expires in n months
<n>y = key expires in n years
Key is valid for? (0) 2
ms: generating subkey...
gpg (GnuPG) 1.4.9; Copyright (C) 2008 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 1024R/A09F70B7 created: 2008-08-08 expires: 2008-08-09 usage: SC
trust: ultimate validity: ultimate
[ultimate] (1). Foo T. Bar (DO NOT USE!) <monkey@example.org>
Key is protected.
You need a passphrase to unlock the secret key for
user: "Foo T. Bar (DO NOT USE!) <monkey@example.org>"
1024-bit RSA key, ID A09F70B7, created 2008-08-08
gpg: Invalid passphrase; please try again ...
You need a passphrase to unlock the secret key for
user: "Foo T. Bar (DO NOT USE!) <monkey@example.org>"
1024-bit RSA key, ID A09F70B7, created 2008-08-08
gpg: Invalid passphrase; please try again ...
You need a passphrase to unlock the secret key for
user: "Foo T. Bar (DO NOT USE!) <monkey@example.org>"
1024-bit RSA key, ID A09F70B7, created 2008-08-08
gpg: Key generation failed: bad passphrase
Invalid command (try "help")
ms: done.
0 wt215@squeak:~$
This user does not have use-agent configured in ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf.
This problem can be resolved by the user doing:
echo use-agent >> ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf
gpg-agent --daemon monkeysphere --gen-subkey
Then they will be prompted for their passphrase during key creation.
If we're OK with relying on gpg-agent, we should make make that an
explicit dependency, and ensure that an agent is running (or start one
up specifically for the process).
If we're not OK with relying on the agent, --gen-subkey needs
fixing.
I think requiring the agent and using it for getting the passphrase is
fine. That should make this bug fairly easy to fix, so I'll get on
it.
-- BJ (jgr)
Alternately, we could use --passwd-fd and ssh-agent, along the
lines i proposed for handling passphrase-locked secret
keys.
