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gnupg is unable to merge secret keyrings
Closed, ResolvedPublic

Description

Release: 1.2.4

Environment

powerpc-linux

Description

Hi,

I use GnuPG on multiple machines and happened to generate new encryption
subkeys on two different machines. When resynchronizing the different
homedirectories, I tried to merge the secret keyrings in order to have
a keyring with all encryption subkeys installed, however gpg does not allow
me to import a secret key that is already present.

It would be nice if gpg were able to merge secret keyrings.

Simon

How To Repeat

  • Generate a new DSA key
  • Copy the secring.gpg file
  • Using the original secring, attach a subkey to the DSA key.
  • Using the copy of the secring, attach a subkey to the DSA key.
  • Import the copy of the secring into the original secring.

Fix

Unknown

Event Timeline

What did you do for the last step? You need to use --import and --export and you should first import the public key before you import the secret key.

Won't be changed, GnuPG 2 will eventually use an entirely
different scheme to manage secret keys.