dirmngr(8)



DIRMNGR(8)                   GNU Privacy Guard 2.2                  DIRMNGR(8)

NAME
       dirmngr - CRL and OCSP daemon

SYNOPSIS
       dirmngr [options] command [args]

DESCRIPTION
       Since version 2.1 of GnuPG, dirmngr takes care of accessing the OpenPGP
       keyservers.  As with previous versions it is also used as a server  for
       managing  and downloading certificate revocation lists (CRLs) for X.509
       certificates, downloading X.509 certificates, and providing  access  to
       OCSP  providers.   Dirmngr  is invoked internally by gpg, gpgsm, or via
       the gpg-connect-agent tool.

COMMANDS
       Commands are not distinguished from options except for  the  fact  that
       only one command is allowed.

       --version
              Print  the program version and licensing information.  Note that
              you cannot abbreviate this command.

       --help, -h
              Print a usage message summarizing the most  useful  command-line
              options.  Note that you cannot abbreviate this command.

       --dump-options
              Print  a  list of all available options and commands.  Note that
              you cannot abbreviate this command.

       --server
              Run in server mode and wait for commands on the stdin.  The  de-
              fault  mode is to create a socket and listen for commands there.
              This is only used for testing.

       --daemon
              Run in background daemon mode  and  listen  for  commands  on  a
              socket.   This  is  the  way dirmngr is started on demand by the
              other GnuPG components.  To force starting dirmngr it is in gen-
              eral best to use gpgconf --launch dirmngr.

       --supervised
              Run  in the foreground, sending logs to stderr, and listening on
              file descriptor 3, which must already be bound  to  a  listening
              socket.  This is useful when running under systemd or other sim-
              ilar process supervision schemes.  This option is not  supported
              on Windows.

       --list-crls
              List  the  contents of the CRL cache on stdout. This is probably
              only useful for debugging purposes.

       --load-crl file
              This command requires a filename as additional argument, and  it
              will make Dirmngr try to import the CRL in file into it's cache.
              Note, that this is only possible if Dirmngr is able to  retrieve
              the  CA's  certificate directly by its own means.  In general it
              is better to use gpgsm's --call-dirmngr loadcrl filename command
              so that gpgsm can help dirmngr.

       --fetch-crl url
              This command requires an URL as additional argument, and it will
              make dirmngr try to retrieve and import the CRL  from  that  url
              into  it's cache.  This is mainly useful for debugging purposes.
              The dirmngr-client provides the same feature for a running dirm-
              ngr.

       --shutdown
              This  commands  shuts down an running instance of Dirmngr.  This
              command has currently no effect.

       --flush
              This command removes all CRLs from Dirmngr's cache.  Client  re-
              quests will thus trigger reading of fresh CRLs.

OPTIONS
       Note  that all long options with the exception of --options and --home-
       dir 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 di-
              rectory  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 see-
              ing  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 net-
              work).  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  En-
              abled''.

       --recursive-resolver
              When  possible  use  a  recursive resolver instead of a stub re-
              solver.

       --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  connec-
              tion  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  ver-
              sions, 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  com-
              mand:

                gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'loadswdb --force' /bye

       --keyserver name
              Use  name as your keyserver.  This is the server that gpg commu-
              nicates with to receive keys, send keys, and  search  for  keys.
              The   format  of  the  name  is  a  URI:  `scheme:[//]keyserver-
              name[: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  par-
              ticular  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 gener-
              ally 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.   Up-
              stream  GnuPG  prefers hkps://hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net.  See
              /usr/share/doc/gpgconf/NEWS.Debian.gz for more details.

       --nameserver ipaddr
              In ``Tor mode'' Dirmngr uses a public resolver via  Tor  to  re-
              solve  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  cer-
              tificate  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  ig-
              noring 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 op-
              tion 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 omit-
              ted, 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  certifi-
              cates 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 solu-
              tion here than to put such a password  in  the  binary  encoding
              into  the  file  (i.e.  non-ascii characters won't show up read-
              able). ([The gpgconf tool might be helpful for frontends  as  it
              enables  editing  this  configuration file using percent-escaped
              strings.])

       --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 val-
              idating 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 re-
              sponses 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  fol-
              lowed  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  cer-
              tificates.  Tilde expansion is supported.

              If  no hkp-cacert directive is present, dirmngr will make a rea-
              sonable choice: if the keyserver in question is the special pool
              hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net,  it will use the bundled root cer-
              tificate for that pool.  Otherwise, it will use the system CAs.

EXAMPLES
       Here is an example on how to show dirmngr's internal table  of  OpenPGP
       keyserver addresses.  The output is intended for debugging purposes and
       not part of a defined API.

           gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'keyserver --hosttable' /bye

       To inhibit the use of a particular host you have noticed in one of  the
       keyserver pools, you may use

          gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'keyserver --dead pgpkeys.bnd.de' /bye

       The description of the keyserver command can be printed using

          gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'help keyserver' /bye

FILES
       Dirmngr  makes  use of several directories when running in daemon mode:
       There are a few configuration files whih control the operation of dirm-
       ngr.   By  default  they may all be found in the current home directory
       (see: [option --homedir]).

       dirmngr.conf
              This is the standard  configuration  file  read  by  dirmngr  on
              startup.   It may contain any valid long option; the leading two
              dashes may not be entered and the option may not be abbreviated.
              This  file  is  also read after a SIGHUP however not all options
              will actually have an effect.  This default name may be  changed
              on  the  command  line  (see:  [option  --options]).  You should
              backup this file.

       /etc/gnupg/trusted-certs
              This directory should be filled with certificates  of  Root  CAs
              you  are  trusting  in  checking  the  CRLs and signing OCSP Re-
              sponses.

              Usually these are the same certificates you use with the  appli-
              cations  making  use  of  dirmngr.   It is expected that each of
              these certificate files contain exactly one DER encoded certifi-
              cate  in a file with the suffix '.crt' or '.der'.  dirmngr reads
              those certificates on startup and when given a SIGHUP.  Certifi-
              cates  which  are  not readable or do not make up a proper X.509
              certificate are ignored; see the log file for details.

              Applications using dirmngr (e.g. gpgsm) can request  these  cer-
              tificates  to complete a trust chain in the same way as with the
              extra-certs directory (see below).

              Note that for OCSP responses the certificate specified using the
              option --ocsp-signer is always considered valid to sign OCSP re-
              quests.

       /etc/gnupg/extra-certs
              This directory may contain extra  certificates  which  are  pre-
              loaded  into  the  internal cache on startup. Applications using
              dirmngr (e.g. gpgsm) can request cached certificates to complete
              a  trust  chain.   This is convenient in cases you have a couple
              intermediate CA certificates or  certificates  usually  used  to
              sign  OCSP responses.  These certificates are first tried before
              going out to the net to look for them.  These certificates  must
              also be DER encoded and suffixed with '.crt' or '.der'.

       ~/.gnupg/crls.d
              This  directory is used to store cached CRLs.  The 'crls.d' part
              will be created by dirmngr if it does not exists but you need to
              make sure that the upper directory exists.

SIGNALS
       A  running  dirmngr  may  be controlled by signals, i.e. using the kill
       command to send a signal to the process.

       Here is a list of supported signals:

       SIGHUP This signal flushes all internally cached CRLs as  well  as  any
              cached  certificates.   Then the certificate cache is reinitial-
              ized as on startup.  Options are re-read from the  configuration
              file.  Instead of sending this signal it is better to use
         gpgconf --reload dirmngr

       SIGTERM
              Shuts  down the process but waits until all current requests are
              fulfilled.  If the process has received 3 of these  signals  and
              requests  are still pending, a shutdown is forced.  You may also
              use
         gpgconf --kill dirmngr
       instead of this signal

       SIGINT Shuts down the process immediately.

       SIGUSR1
              This prints some caching statistics to the log file.

SEE ALSO
       gpgsm(1), dirmngr-client(1)

       The full documentation for this tool is maintained as a Texinfo manual.
       If  GnuPG and the info program are properly installed at your site, the
       command

         info gnupg

       should give you access to the complete manual including a  menu  struc-
       ture and an index.

GnuPG 2.2.20                      2020-03-18                        DIRMNGR(8)

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