using a smartcard without keytocard

[David Shaw]

On Mar 22, 2010, at 12:11 AM, Hauke Laging wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I have just bought a gnupg smartcard, copied my subkeys to it, and it works. I 
> have been using a key on several computers. Now I want the other systems to 
> use the smartcard, too, so that I can delete the private keys there. The 
> content of the smartcard is shown by --card-status and I could even use the 
> authentication key for an SSH connection.
> 
> For SSH connections gpg-agent looks at tha smartcard by default but it does 
> not for normal key lookup. I just get an error message (something like "no 
> private key found") if I delete the private keys.
> 
> Is there an "official" way to tell gpg to use the smartcard? Anything except 
> copying the keys to the card again (executing keytocard on all systems)?

Yes.  If I understand what you are asking, the easiest way to do this is to delete the secret key on those systems, then insert the card, and do a 'gpg --card-status'.  That recreates the secret key stub so GPG knows to look at the card for that key.

David