Ugly way to change the primary UID

Werner Koch wk@gnupg.org
Tue May 1 19:51:01 2001


On Tue, 1 May 2001, Waldemar Brodkorb wrote:


> Is it possible to change the primary uid?
We can't yet set the primary key id flag. I think this ugly workaround should help: 1. Make a local copy of your public and your secret key. (use --export and --export-secret-key) 2. Use deluid to remove all non-primary user IDs 3. Use expire to change the expiration time of the main key 4. Save 5. Optional: Edit key again and change expiration time back to the old value. 6. Wait one second (in case you are using a script) 6. Use --import --allow-secret-key-import to import your backup public and secret key from step 1 again. The newer signatures should take precedence over the ones from the backup key and therefore you have one user ID with a newer timestamp and in absence of a primary key flag, this one will count as primary key. I have not tested this and I know that it is ugly. The plan is to have a self-signature update capability per user ID which can the be used to change such things. This will probably not update the timestamp of the self-signature but just set it one second ahead. I am not sure on this point, though. Werner -- Werner Koch Omnis enim res, quae dando non deficit, dum habetur g10 Code GmbH et non datur, nondum habetur, quomodo habenda est. Privacy Solutions -- Augustinus