question about public key usage

[Smith, Cathy]

Thank you

The earlier answer got caught at the firewall.  I apologize for posting twice.

Best regards,

Cathy
---
Cathy L. Smith
IT Engineer

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Operated by Battelle for the
U.S. Department of Energy

Phone:      509.375.2687
Fax:        509.375.2330
Email:      cathy.smith at pnnl.gov


-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Barton [mailto:dougb at dougbarton.us] 
Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 12:57 PM
To: Smith, Cathy; 'gnupg-users at gnupg.org'
Subject: Re: question about public key usage

On 11/07/2013 12:52 PM, Smith, Cathy wrote:
> Hi
> Is it possible to have 2 public keys with different expiration dates 
> for the same user?  I created a public key a couple of years ago to be 
> used to exchange documents with vendors for a batch processing 
> account.  That is working just fine.  A new vendor wants our public 
> key but requires the key to have a shorter expiration date.  I don't 
> want to distribute a new public key to existing customers.

Someone else already answered this question for you, but the answer effectively is "yes," however you don't need to do that.

Edit the expiration date on the existing key to match the requirement for the new vendor, and then give them that version of the key. There is no reason to have multiple keys in this situation.

hope this helps,

Doug