Status of GPA and GPGME

David Shaw dshaw@jabberwocky.com
Mon Aug 26 19:18:01 2002


On Thu, Jan 01, 1970 at 12:00:00AM +0000, Miguel Coca wrote:

> Also, is there any chance to get an interface to keyserver access from
> gpgme? I know there is supposed to be a way to get remote key listings
> (although I can't get it to work), but there is no support for --recv-key or
> --send-key. Wouldn't it be a waste to have to reimplement it for GPA?

Werner forwarded me this note (I wasn't subscribed to this list
before, but am now).

Keyserver access in GnuPG is done with external "helper" programs for
the different keyserver types (gpgkeys_ldap, gpgkeys_mailto,
gpgkeys_dns, etc.)  Currently, this is not complete (and won't be
complete in 1.2), so the keyserver plugins system is used for all
keyserver types except for HKP (the HTTP-like servers such as
pgp.mit.edu).

All GnuPG does for a keyserver search (or really, any keyserver
access) is send instructions in a standard format to the helper
program which then returns the keys (or key listings for a search)
back.  One way of looking at it is a very fancy front-end to
--import.

Perhaps it would make sense for gpa or gpgme to call the keyserver
helpers directly, rather than through GnuPG?  There might be issues
with configuration options about keyserver access in the config file.

David

-- 
   David Shaw  |  dshaw@jabberwocky.com  |  WWW http://www.jabberwocky.com/
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