Problem with faked-system-time option

[Werner Koch]

On Sun,  5 Jun 2011 21:15, amanoc at dizum.nl said:

> To begin with, I wonder whether I have to drag along all those 25 MB

The light installer is 15MB.

> iconv.dll).  Is there a chance to slim it down in case I only need to
> create / delete keys and encrypt / sign / verify messages?

Yes, in theory but it is a lot of work to distribute and maintain 3
installers.  Even convincing my co-hackers to keep the light installer
was not easy.

You may build your own installer of course.  The installer is a meta
package and using a decent Debian OS a new installer is easy to build.

> without altering the host system.  I have GPG1 with all its data
> stored on a removable device and use it on several computers, no local
> installation required.  That's a perfect portable application, which
> shouldn't be dismissed without an adequate replacement at hand.

The installer can't do that out of the box.  

> Last but not least, do I have to start the gpg-agent background task
> for each command line gpg call if I don't want to risk data corruption
> when inadvertently removing that USB device?

If the gpg-agent fails it gfails and it won't corrupt any data.

> Those are a lot of questions, but I'm still highly sceptical towards
> that GPG2 monster and would prefer to stay with my more manageable

It is not a moster; rthe installer is only that larger becuase it
includes the GTK+ libraries a full mail client and GPA.  

> GPG1, if it only had that faked-system-time option.  Is there room for
> hope to get it enhanced that way?

The faked-system-time option is a debug option we need to run the
regression tests.  If you merely want to create your keys with an other
creation date you may use a parameter file:

  @item  Ceation-Date: @var{iso-date}
  Set the creation date of the key as stored in the key information and
  which is also part of the fingerprint calculation.  Either a date like
  "1986-04-26" or a full timestamp like "19860426T042640" may be used.
  The time is considered to be UTC.  If it is not given the current time
  is used.

The batch key generation and that parameter is supported by all
versions.


Shalom-Salam,

   Werner

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