Problem removing a public key whose private key is gone

[Atom Smasher]

On Tue, 7 Mar 2006, Jeremiah Foster wrote:

> I overwrote the partition upon which my private key was stored. To 
> confuse matters I generated a new secret / public key pair on the same 
> machine and even imported my old public key, thinking, rather foolishly, 
> that I might somehow be able to restore the destroyed secret key.
>
> How do I properly remove the old, unusable public key when I do not 
> possess the secret key any longer and without destroying my entire gpg 
> installation.
================

you can remove any public key from your keyring with:
 	gpg --delete-key {key-id}

if you have any doubts about doing it right, or if you're having a bad 
day, backup the keyring before trying to delete anything from it.

if no one else has a copy of the key, you're done. if the key is in 
circulation among key-servers (and if you don't have a revocation 
certificate) you're beat.


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