Which Key server?

[Dick Gevers]

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Hi all,

On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 13:30:25 -0500, David Shaw <dshaw at jabberwocky.com> wrote
about Re: Which Key server?:

>On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 01:22:49PM -0600, John Clizbe wrote:
>
>> (Werner, David: Has any thought been given to supporting multiple
>> keyserver entries in gpg.conf and polling them in succession like
>> the PGP GUI does when autoretrieving/searching?)
>
>Yes, it's been thought about, and it's on the wishlist.  It's not
>terribly high on the wishlist though ;)

I am pleased to offer, with his permission, Mr. Todd Lyons` scripts he uses
which answers John`s needs in this respect and which Todd posted just the
other day to the ML expert at linux-mandrake.com:

start quote

> A couple of scripts that could be used to people's advantage:

# REM For ease of reading I did not include the >`s in the scripts.


~/bin/sendkey:
#!/bin/sh
#
KEYSERVERS="wwwkeys.us.pgp.net www.mandrakesecure.net pgp.mit.edu
www.keyserver.net"
KEY="todd at mrball.net"
TMPFILE="$HOME/tmp/todd.asc"
UPLOADDEST="user at www.mrball.net:/var/www/html"

for TARG in ${KEYSERVERS}; do
        echo "Keyserver ${TARG}"
        gpg --keyserver ${TARG} --send-keys ${KEY}
done

rm -f ${TMPFILE} \
	&& gpg --fingerprint ${KEY} > ${TMPFILE} \
	&& gpg --export --armor ${KEY} >> ${TMPFILE} \
	&& scp ${TMPFILE} ${UPLOADDEST} \
	&& rm -f ${TMPFILE}

end quote

start quote


~/bin/getkeys:
#!/bin/sh
#
KEYSERVERS="wwwkeys.us.pgp.net www.mandrakesecure.net pgp.mit.edu
www.keyserver.net"

if [ ! $1 ]; then
        echo "Sorry, you must pass the key number to retrieve"
        exit 1
fi

for TARG in ${KEYSERVERS}; do
        echo "Keyserver ${TARG}"
        unset RETVAL
        gpg --keyserver ${TARG} --recv-keys $1
        RETVAL=$?
        case ${RETVAL} in
          0)    exit 0
                ;;
          *)    echo "Trying next keyserver."
                ;;
        esac
done

end quote

Moreover, Todd, in giving his permission to post these nice scripts, added
the following, which is obviously quite useful for Mutt users, which I am
not (yet):

>You can also mention the way that I personally use it:
>
>My method is simple.  I have mutt configured not to auto download keys
>from the key servers because the keyring would grow quite large very
>quickly.  Instead, when I'm reading email, if I come across one that I
>don't have the key for and I want it, just run it in a quick shell
>command:
>  !getkeys XXXXXXXX
>where XXXXXXXX is the 8 character key ID.  Running it this way in mutt
>brings me back to mutt after the command completes (and I "press any key
>to continue").

HTH
Regards,
=Dick Gevers=


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