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Maniphest T4958

Document different use of pubring.gpg in newer versions
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Description

Current documentation should state that pubring.gpg is not used by default anymore
and only used under some circumstances.

The place where it needs updating is

https://dev.gnupg.org/source/gnupg/browse/master/doc/gpg.texi;94d31660c6db22c3b539f440994d286f687c273f$3693

The behaviour is already described starting here
https://dev.gnupg.org/source/gnupg/browse/master/doc/whats-new-in-2.1.txt;94d31660c6db22c3b539f440994d286f687c273f$640

what the whats-new-in-2.1.txt is not directly available from the main webpage.

Only for reference:
This report was triggered by a question about what the files do
https://wald.intevation.org/forum/forum.php?thread_id=2194&forum_id=21&group_id=11

Details

External Link
https://wald.intevation.org/forum/forum.php?thread_id=2194&forum_id=21&group_id=11

Revisions and Commits

rG GnuPG
rG77f97eec49ee doc: Describe the relation between pubring.gpg and pubring.kbx
rG4c54a0e34ffe doc: Describe the relation between pubring.gpg and pubring.kbx

Event Timeline

bernhard created this task.May 28 2020, 12:45 PM
• werner triaged this task as Normal priority.May 28 2020, 9:11 PM
• werner edited projects, added gnupg (gpg22); removed gnupg.
• werner added a commit: rG4c54a0e34ffe: doc: Describe the relation between pubring.gpg and pubring.kbx.Aug 20 2020, 10:16 AM
• werner added a commit: rG77f97eec49ee: doc: Describe the relation between pubring.gpg and pubring.kbx.
• werner closed this task as Resolved.Aug 20 2020, 10:16 AM

Thanks. Fixed for 2.2.22

bernhard added a comment.EditedAug 21 2020, 8:49 AM

Read through it, thanks for the updated description!

The description on section @efindex pubring.gpg could possibly be clarified further

  If this file is not available, @command{gpg} defaults to the new
	​  keybox format and creates a file @file{pubring.kbx} unless that file
	​  already exists in which case that file will also be used for OpenPGP
	​  keys.

Here is is unclear if both files are used and how (both read and write or just one for reading).

A suggestion for simplification (I haven't checked if this is correct, just from my understanding of your section):

Since version 2.1 this file is optional and will be used for reading pubkeys from.
For backward compatibility, it will be also used for writing pubkeys to, if there is no  or just an empty @file{pubring.kbx}.
If @file{pubring.gpg} does not exit, it will not be created.

 In the case that you have to use GnuPG 1.4 to decrypt archived data you should
keep this file.