Question about --rebuild-keydb-caches

[Ingo Klöcker]

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Hi,

I just refreshed my keyring (using GnuPG 1.2.1):
gpg: Total number processed: 262
gpg:       skipped new keys: 1
gpg:              unchanged: 142
gpg:           new user IDs: 34
gpg:            new subkeys: 2
gpg:         new signatures: 4333

Afterwards I ran gpg --check-trustdb:
> time gpg --check-trustdb
gpg: checking at depth 0 signed=3D67 ot(-/q/n/m/f/u)=3D0/0/0/0/0/5
gpg: checking at depth 1 signed=3D64 ot(-/q/n/m/f/u)=3D57/0/0/6/4/0
gpg: checking at depth 2 signed=3D11 ot(-/q/n/m/f/u)=3D37/0/0/0/1/0
gpg: checking at depth 3 signed=3D0 ot(-/q/n/m/f/u)=3D0/0/0/0/1/0
gpg: next trustdb check due at 2003-05-31

real    0m5.672s
user    0m4.650s
sys     0m0.560s

A second run took the same amount of time. Before the refresh it wasn't=20
that slow IIRC. So I decided to try if rebuilding the signature caches=20
helps.

Now I get:
> time gpg --check-trustdb
gpg: checking at depth 0 signed=3D67 ot(-/q/n/m/f/u)=3D0/0/0/0/0/5
gpg: checking at depth 1 signed=3D64 ot(-/q/n/m/f/u)=3D57/0/0/6/4/0
gpg: checking at depth 2 signed=3D11 ot(-/q/n/m/f/u)=3D37/0/0/0/1/0
gpg: checking at depth 3 signed=3D0 ot(-/q/n/m/f/u)=3D0/0/0/0/1/0
gpg: next trustdb check due at 2003-05-31

real    0m1.871s
user    0m1.230s
sys     0m0.420s

So user time went down nearly 75%.

My question is now whether there was a problem with my keyring (I have=20
rebuild the caches several times since the days of 1.0.6) or is it=20
always useful to run --rebuild-keydb-caches after larger changes in the=20
keyring. In the latter case the documentation needs to be improved.=20
Currently man gpg simply says:

  --rebuild-keydb-caches
    When updating from version 1.0.6 to 1.0.7 this command should be
    used to create signature caches in the keyring.  It might be handy
    in other situ=ADations too.

"other situations" could mean anything.

Regards,
Ingo


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