I think that this chnage is useful enough to be backported to 2.2. Done that.

You can test it now out using GnuPG master: Just add --include-key-block and you can then verify using an empty keyring. Currently --auto-key-retrieve is not needed but we need to think on how we can enable or disable this during verification.

ftr, here is the thread I had in mind but couldn't recall above. @aheinecke is that your thinking, or a more pgp/mime bound mechanism as @dkg assumed?

@wiktor-k, "just extend the spec" doesn't necessarily work with existing clients, which might be surprised to find unexpected packets in the signature section of an e-mail. It seems more likely to me that they'd be able to handle (meaning: ignore) an unknown subpacket (as long as it's well-formed) than to handle additional packets. But all of these surmises require testing with existing clients, of course. Has anyone done any of that testing?

This is a nice idea and although it overlaps with Autocrypt it has other uses too: for example verification of signed files that can be vastly simplified (just get the file and the signature, no key fetching needed, downside: the key attached to the signature could be stale).

Ah, thanks for pointing out the subpacket option (i guess it could be hashed or unhashed). i don't think any of the subpackets currently defined in RFC4880 supports this use case -- but i guess you could mint a new one, or use a notation.

Werner said that it's possible in OpenPGP to also put the pubkey into the signature. (...) The nice advantage is that this will also work for files.

Hi @aheinecke, thanks for thinking about this, and thanks for tagging me here too. I'm definitely interested.

In T4513#132777, @Valodim wrote:

But searching on Keyservers is also in my opinion not a common use case for Kleopatra users.

Thanks for engaging constructively.

In T4513#132770, @aheinecke wrote:

Werner could you maybe at least check for an internet connection, I don't know how to do it on Linux but on Windows it's easy because windows has API for that.

But searching on Keyservers is also in my opinion not a common use case for Kleopatra users.

and by that bypassing all key source tracking as done by gpg. In any case searching by name or mail address on a keyserver should not be done - at least not by a GUI tool as used by non experienced users.

I agree that this is a tricky problem, but it should really be improved.

The problem is not to check whether there is a connection but on how to decide whether something is a pool or an explictly added single keyserver and how often should we try to connect or read from it. Without marking hosts as dead the auto search features won't work well.

@Valodim probably not so much as dirmngr might behave differently and not mark hosts as dead.

The proper solution is of course to use pkill instead of killall. SCNR.

I can attest to the "growing bit of popular lore": Roughly half the support requests I get to support@keys.openpgp.org boil down to an exchange of "it just doesn't work with a 'general error' message" -> "try killall dirmngr" -> "that did it". I have heard similar stories from @patrick from Enigmail users, and more than once heard people applying poweruser trickery like "I just have killall dirmngr in my resume.d".

Unusable v6 interfaces are now detected on Windows and then not used.

Ping.

There is a growing bit of popular lore in the GnuPG community that "when keyserver operations fail, you solve that problem with killall dirmngr." I believe this suggestion is potentially damaging (the long-running daemon may be in the middle of operations for a client that you don't know about), but i suspect it is circulating as advice because it resolves the situation outlined in this ticket. For whatever ephemeral reason, dirmngr gets stuck, and fails to notice that this situation has resolved itself.

I'm aware of you releasing an RC for comments, and i apologize for not catching this particular case earlier. As you know from T4607, i was even advocating for it. i didn't understand the full implications of the "import-then-clean" approach at the time, and was thinking it would only apply to the incoming material, not the stored material.

The code has comments why we do a first clean_key on the imported keyblock.

i've merged a variant of rGbe99eec2b105eb5f8e3759147ae351dcc40560ad into the GnuPG packaging in debian unstable as of version 2.2.17-3 to avoid the risks of data loss and signature verification failures. I'll revert it if i see the concern addressed upstream.

that pseudocode is strange to me -- it looks like you have (two) duplicate calls to clean_key (imported_keyblock) (though maybe i just don't know what .... means in this pseudocode).

You are partly right. I missed that we also do clean the original keyblock while updating a key. The code is

I think dropping import-clean from the default keyserver options is the right way to go. It is not clear what additional benefit import-clean provides given that we are already using self-sigs-only. And the idea of non-additive behavior to the local keyring when pulling from a keyserver is a deeply surprising change for multiple users i've talked to.