DIRMNGR(8) GNU Privacy Guard 2.4 DIRMNGR(8)
NAME
dirmngr - GnuPG's network access daemon
SYNOPSIS
dirmngr [options] command [args]
DESCRIPTION
Since version 2.1 of GnuPG, dirmngr takes care of accessing the OpenPGP
keyservers. As with previous versions it is also used as a server for
managing and downloading certificate revocation lists (CRLs) for X.509
certificates, downloading X.509 certificates, and providing access to
OCSP providers. Dirmngr is invoked internally by gpg, gpgsm, or via
the gpg-connect-agent tool.
COMMANDS
Commands are not distinguished from options except for the fact that
only one command is allowed.
--version
Print the program version and licensing information. Note that
you cannot abbreviate this command.
--help, -h
Print a usage message summarizing the most useful command-line
options. Note that you cannot abbreviate this command.
--dump-options
Print a list of all available options and commands. Note that
you cannot abbreviate this command.
--server
Run in server mode and wait for commands on the stdin. The
default mode is to create a socket and listen for commands
there. This is only used for testing.
--daemon
Run in background daemon mode and listen for commands on a
socket. This is the way dirmngr is started on demand by the
other GnuPG components. To force starting dirmngr it is in
general best to use gpgconf --launch dirmngr.
--supervised
Run in the foreground, sending logs to stderr, and listening on
file descriptor 3, which must already be bound to a listening
socket. This option is deprecated and not supported on Windows.
--list-crls
List the contents of the CRL cache on stdout. This is probably
only useful for debugging purposes.
--load-crl file
This command requires a filename as additional argument, and it
will make Dirmngr try to import the CRL in file into it's cache.
Note, that this is only possible if Dirmngr is able to retrieve
the CA's certificate directly by its own means. In general it
is better to use gpgsm's --call-dirmngr loadcrl filename command
so that gpgsm can help dirmngr.
--fetch-crl url
This command requires an URL as additional argument, and it will
make dirmngr try to retrieve and import the CRL from that url
into it's cache. This is mainly useful for debugging purposes.
The dirmngr-client provides the same feature for a running
dirmngr.
--shutdown
This commands shuts down an running instance of Dirmngr. This
command has currently no effect.
--flush
This command removes all CRLs from Dirmngr's cache. Client
requests will thus trigger reading of fresh CRLs.
OPTIONS
Note that all long options with the exception of --options and
--homedir may also be given in the configuration file after stripping
off the two leading dashes.
--options file
Reads configuration from file instead of from the default per-
user configuration file. The default configuration file is
named ‘dirmngr.conf’ and expected in the home directory.
--homedir dir
Set the name of the home directory to dir. This option is only
effective when used on the command line. The default is the
directory named ‘.gnupg’ directly below the home directory of
the user unless the environment variable GNUPGHOME has been set
in which case its value will be used. Many kinds of data are
stored within this directory.
-v
--verbose
Outputs additional information while running. You can increase
the verbosity by giving several verbose commands to dirmngr,
such as -vv.
--log-file file
Append all logging output to file. This is very helpful in
seeing what the agent actually does. Use ‘socket://’ to log to
socket.
--compatibility-flags flags
Set compatibility flags to work around certain problems or to
emulate bugs. The flags are given as a comma separated list of
flag names and are OR-ed together. The special flag "none"
clears the list and allows one to start over with an empty list.
To get a list of available flags the sole word "help" can be
used.
--faked-system-time epoch
This option is only useful for testing; it sets the system time
back or forth to epoch which is the number of seconds elapsed
since the year 1970. Alternatively epoch may be given as a full
ISO time string (e.g. "20070924T154812").
--debug-level level
Select the debug level for investigating problems. level may be
a numeric value or by a keyword:
none No debugging at all. A value of less than 1 may be used
instead of the keyword.
basic Some basic debug messages. A value between 1 and 2 may
be used instead of the keyword.
advanced
More verbose debug messages. A value between 3 and 5 may
be used instead of the keyword.
expert Even more detailed messages. A value between 6 and 8 may
be used instead of the keyword.
guru All of the debug messages you can get. A value greater
than 8 may be used instead of the keyword. The creation
of hash tracing files is only enabled if the keyword is
used.
How these messages are mapped to the actual debugging flags is not
specified and may change with newer releases of this program. They are
however carefully selected to best aid in debugging.
--debug flags
Set debug flags. All flags are or-ed and flags may be given in
C syntax (e.g. 0x0042) or as a comma separated list of flag
names. To get a list of all supported flags the single word
"help" can be used. This option is only useful for debugging
and the behavior may change at any time without notice.
--debug-all
Same as --debug=0xffffffff
--tls-debug level
Enable debugging of the TLS layer at level. The details of the
debug level depend on the used TLS library and are not set in
stone.
--debug-wait n
When running in server mode, wait n seconds before entering the
actual processing loop and print the pid. This gives time to
attach a debugger.
--disable-check-own-socket
On some platforms dirmngr is able to detect the removal of its
socket file and shutdown itself. This option disable this self-
test for debugging purposes.
-s
--sh
-c
--csh Format the info output in daemon mode for use with the standard
Bourne shell respective the C-shell. The default is to guess it
based on the environment variable SHELL which is in almost all
cases sufficient.
--force
Enabling this option forces loading of expired CRLs; this is
only useful for debugging.
--use-tor
--no-use-tor
The option --use-tor switches Dirmngr and thus GnuPG into ``Tor
mode'' to route all network access via Tor (an anonymity
network). Certain other features are disabled in this mode.
The effect of --use-tor cannot be overridden by any other
command or even by reloading dirmngr. The use of --no-use-tor
disables the use of Tor. The default is to use Tor if it is
available on startup or after reloading dirmngr. The test on
the availability of Tor is done by trying to connect to a SOCKS
proxy at either port 9050 or 9150; if another type of proxy is
listening on one of these ports, you should use --no-use-tor.
--standard-resolver
This option forces the use of the system's standard DNS resolver
code. This is mainly used for debugging. Note that on Windows
a standard resolver is not used and all DNS access will return
the error ``Not Implemented'' if this option is used. Using
this together with enabled Tor mode returns the error ``Not
Enabled''.
--recursive-resolver
When possible use a recursive resolver instead of a stub
resolver.
--resolver-timeout n
Set the timeout for the DNS resolver to N seconds. The default
are 30 seconds.
--connect-timeout n
--connect-quick-timeout n
Set the timeout for HTTP and generic TCP connection attempts to
N seconds. The value set with the quick variant is used when
the --quick option has been given to certain Assuan commands.
The quick value is capped at the value of the regular connect
timeout. The default values are 15 and 2 seconds. Note that
the timeout values are for each connection attempt; the
connection code will attempt to connect all addresses listed for
a server.
--listen-backlog n
Set the size of the queue for pending connections. The default
is 64.
--allow-version-check
Allow Dirmngr to connect to https://versions.gnupg.org to get
the list of current software versions. If this option is
enabled the list is retrieved in case the local copy does not
exist or is older than 5 to 7 days. See the option --query-swdb
of the command gpgconf for more details. Note, that regardless
of this option a version check can always be triggered using
this command:
gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'loadswdb --force' /bye
--keyserver name
Use name as your keyserver. This is the server that gpg
communicates with to receive keys, send keys, and search for
keys. The format of the name is a URI:
`scheme:[//]keyservername[:port]' The scheme is the type of
keyserver: "hkp" for the HTTP (or compatible) keyservers or
"ldap" for the LDAP keyservers. Note that your particular
installation of GnuPG may have other keyserver types available
as well. Keyserver schemes are case-insensitive. After the
keyserver name, optional keyserver configuration options may be
provided. These are the same as the --keyserver-options of gpg,
but apply only to this particular keyserver.
Some keyservers synchronize with each other, so there is not
always a need to send keys to more than one server. Some
keyservers use round robin DNS to give a different keyserver
each time you use it.
If exactly two keyservers are configured and only one is a Tor
hidden service (.onion), Dirmngr selects the keyserver to use
depending on whether Tor is locally running or not. The check
for a running Tor is done for each new connection.
If no keyserver is explicitly configured, dirmngr will use the
built-in default of https://keyserver.ubuntu.com. To avoid the
use of a default keyserver the value none can be used.
Windows users with a keyserver running on their Active Directory
may use the short form ldap:/// for name to access this
directory.
For accessing anonymous LDAP keyservers name is in general just
a ldaps://ldap.example.com. A BaseDN parameter should never be
specified. If authentication is required things are more
complicated and two methods are available:
The modern method (since version 2.2.28) is to use the very same
syntax as used with the option --ldapserver. Please see over
there for details; here is an example:
keyserver ldap:ldap.example.com::uid=USERNAME,ou=GnuPG Users,
dc=example,dc=com:PASSWORD::starttls
The other method is to use a full URL for name; for example:
keyserver ldaps://ldap.example.com/????bindname=uid=USERNAME
%2Cou=GnuPG%20Users%2Cdc=example%2Cdc=com,password=PASSWORD
Put this all on one line without any spaces and keep the '%2C'
as given. Replace USERNAME, PASSWORD, and the 'dc' parts
according to the instructions received from your LDAP
administrator. Note that only simple authentication
(i.e. cleartext passwords) is supported and thus using ldaps is
strongly suggested (since 2.2.28 "ldaps" defaults to port 389
and uses STARTTLS). On Windows authentication via AD can be
requested by adding gpgNtds=1 after the fourth question
mark instead of the bindname and password parameter.
--nameserver ipaddr
In ``Tor mode'' Dirmngr uses a public resolver via Tor to
resolve DNS names. If the default public resolver, which is
8.8.8.8, shall not be used a different one can be given using
this option. Note that a numerical IP address must be given
(IPv6 or IPv4) and that no error checking is done for ipaddr.
--disable-ipv4
--disable-ipv6
Disable the use of all IPv4 or IPv6 addresses.
--disable-ldap
Entirely disables the use of LDAP.
--disable-http
Disable the use of HTTP to fetch CRLs. This also disables OCSP
requests as a side-effect. HTTP access to keyservers and to
other files will still work. This is a legacy option from a
time before CRL distribution points became common; it is better
to use the explicit option --ignore-http-dp if the goal is to
avoid fetching CRLs via HTTP.
--ignore-http-dp
When looking for the location of a CRL, the to be tested
certificate usually contains so called CRL Distribution Point
(DP) entries which are URLs describing the way to access the
CRL. The first found DP entry is used. With this option all
entries using the HTTP scheme are ignored when looking for a
suitable DP.
--ignore-ldap-dp
This is similar to --ignore-http-dp but ignores entries using
the LDAP scheme. Both options may be combined resulting in
ignoring DPs entirely.
--ignore-ocsp-service-url
Ignore all OCSP URLs contained in the certificate. The effect
is to force the use of the default responder.
--honor-http-proxy
If the environment variable ‘http_proxy’ has been set, use its
value to access HTTP servers. If on Windows the option is used
but the environment variable is not set, the proxy settings are
taken from the system.
--http-proxy host[:port]
Use host and port to access HTTP servers. The use of this
option overrides the environment variable ‘http_proxy’
regardless whether --honor-http-proxy has been set.
--ldap-proxy host[:port]
Use host and port to connect to LDAP servers. If port is
omitted, port 389 (standard LDAP port) is used. This overrides
any specified host and port part in a LDAP URL and will also be
used if host and port have been omitted from the URL.
--only-ldap-proxy
Never use anything else but the LDAP "proxy" as configured with
--ldap-proxy. Usually dirmngr tries to use other configured
LDAP server if the connection using the "proxy" failed.
--ldapserverlist-file file
Read the list of LDAP servers to consult for CRLs and X.509
certificates from file instead of the default per-user ldap
server list file. The default value for file is
‘dirmngr_ldapservers.conf’.
This server list file contains one LDAP server per line in the
format
hostname:port:username:password:base_dn:flags
Lines starting with a ‘#’ are comments.
Note that as usual all strings entered are expected to be UTF-8
encoded. Obviously this will lead to problems if the password
has originally been encoded as Latin-1. There is no other
solution here than to put such a password in the binary encoding
into the file (i.e. non-ascii characters won't show up
readable). ([The gpgconf tool might be helpful for frontends as
it enables editing this configuration file using percent-escaped
strings.])
--ldapserver spec
This is an alternative way to specify LDAP servers for CRL and
X.509 certificate retrieval. If this option is used the servers
configured in ‘dirmngr_ldapservers.conf’ (or the file given by
--ldapserverlist-file) are cleared. Note that
‘dirmngr_ldapservers.conf’ is not read again by a reload signal.
However, --ldapserver options are read again.
spec is either a proper LDAP URL or a colon delimited list of
the form
hostname:port:username:password:base_dn:flags:
with an optional prefix of ldap: (but without the two slashes
which would turn this into a proper LDAP URL). flags is a list
of one or more comma delimited keywords:
plain The default: Do not use a TLS secured connection at all;
the default port is 389.
starttls
Use STARTTLS to secure the connection; the default port
is 389.
ldaptls
Tunnel LDAP through a TLS connection; the default port is
636.
ntds On Windows authenticate the LDAP connection using the
Active Directory with the current user.
areconly
On Windows use only the A or AAAA record when resolving
the LDAP server name.
Note that in an URL style specification the scheme ldaps:// refers to
STARTTLS and _not_ to LDAP-over-TLS.
--ldaptimeout secs
Specify the number of seconds to wait for an LDAP query before
timing out. The default are 15 seconds. 0 will never timeout.
--add-servers
This option makes dirmngr add any servers it discovers when
validating certificates against CRLs to the internal list of
servers to consult for certificates and CRLs. This option
should in general not be used.
This option might be useful when trying to validate a
certificate that has a CRL distribution point that points to a
server that is not already listed in the ldapserverlist.
Dirmngr will always go to this server and try to download the
CRL, but chances are high that the certificate used to sign the
CRL is located on the same server. So if dirmngr doesn't add
that new server to list, it will often not be able to verify the
signature of the CRL unless the --add-servers option is used.
Caveat emptor: Using this option may enable denial-of-service
attacks and leak search requests to unknown third parties. This
is because arbitrary servers are added to the internal list of
LDAP servers which in turn is used for all unspecific LDAP
queries as well as a fallback for queries which did not return a
result.
--allow-ocsp
This option enables OCSP support if requested by the client.
OCSP requests are rejected by default because they may violate
the privacy of the user; for example it is possible to track the
time when a user is reading a mail.
--ocsp-responder url
Use url as the default OCSP Responder if the certificate does
not contain information about an assigned responder. Note, that
--ocsp-signer must also be set to a valid certificate.
--ocsp-signer fpr|file
Use the certificate with the fingerprint fpr to check the
responses of the default OCSP Responder. Alternatively a
filename can be given in which case the response is expected to
be signed by one of the certificates described in that file.
Any argument which contains a slash, dot or tilde is considered
a filename. Usual filename expansion takes place: A tilde at
the start followed by a slash is replaced by the content of
‘HOME’, no slash at start describes a relative filename which
will be searched at the home directory. To make sure that the
file is searched in the home directory, either prepend the name
with "./" or use a name which contains a dot.
If a response has been signed by a certificate described by
these fingerprints no further check upon the validity of this
certificate is done.
The format of the FILE is a list of SHA-1 fingerprint, one per
line with optional colons between the bytes. Empty lines and
lines prefix with a hash mark are ignored.
--ocsp-max-clock-skew n
The number of seconds a skew between the OCSP responder and them
local clock is accepted. Default is 600 (10 minutes).
--ocsp-max-period n
Seconds a response is at maximum considered valid after the time
given in the thisUpdate field. Default is 7776000 (90 days).
--ocsp-current-period n
The number of seconds an OCSP response is considered valid after
the time given in the NEXT_UPDATE datum. Default is 10800 (3
hours).
--max-replies n
Do not return more that n items in one query. The default is
10.
--ignore-cert-extension oid
Add oid to the list of ignored certificate extensions. The oid
is expected to be in dotted decimal form, like 2.5.29.3. This
option may be used more than once. Critical flagged certificate
extensions matching one of the OIDs in the list are treated as
if they are actually handled and thus the certificate won't be
rejected due to an unknown critical extension. Use this option
with care because extensions are usually flagged as critical for
a reason.
--ignore-crl-extension oid
Add oid to the list of ignored CRL extensions. The oid is
expected to be in dotted decimal form. Critical flagged CRL
extensions matching one of the OIDs in the list are treated as
if they are actually handled and thus the certificate won't be
rejected due to an unknown critical extension. Use this option
with care because extensions are usually flagged as critical for
a reason.
--ignore-cert fpr|file
Entirely ignore certificates with the fingerprint fpr. As an
alternative to the fingerprint a filename can be given in which
case all certificates described in that file are ignored. Any
argument which contains a slash, dot or tilde is considered a
filename. Usual filename expansion takes place: A tilde at the
start followed by a slash is replaced by the content of ‘HOME’,
no slash at start describes a relative filename which will be
searched at the home directory. To make sure that the file is
searched in the home directory, either prepend the name with
"./" or use a name which contains a dot. The format of such a
file is a list of SHA-1 fingerprint, one per line with optional
colons between the bytes. Empty lines and lines prefixed with a
hash mark are ignored.
This option is useful as a quick workaround to exclude certain
certificates from the system store.
--hkp-cacert file
Use the root certificates in file for verification of the TLS
certificates used with hkps (keyserver access over TLS). If the
file is in PEM format a suffix of .pem is expected for file.
This option may be given multiple times to add more root
certificates. Tilde expansion is supported.
If no hkp-cacert directive is present, dirmngr will use the
system CAs.
EXAMPLES
Here is an example on how to show dirmngr's internal table of OpenPGP
keyserver addresses. The output is intended for debugging purposes and
not part of a defined API.
gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'keyserver --hosttable' /bye
To inhibit the use of a particular host you have noticed in one of the
keyserver pools, you may use
gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'keyserver --dead pgpkeys.bnd.de' /bye
The description of the keyserver command can be printed using
gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr 'help keyserver' /bye
FILES
Dirmngr makes use of several directories when running in daemon mode:
There are a few configuration files to control the operation of
dirmngr. By default they may all be found in the current home
directory (see: [option --homedir]).
dirmngr.conf
This is the standard configuration file read by dirmngr on
startup. It may contain any valid long option; the leading two
dashes may not be entered and the option may not be abbreviated.
This file is also read after a SIGHUP however not all options
will actually have an effect. This default name may be changed
on the command line (see: [option --options]). You should
backup this file.
/etc/gnupg/trusted-certs
This directory should be filled with certificates of Root CAs
you are trusting in checking the CRLs and signing OCSP
Responses.
Usually these are the same certificates you use with the
applications making use of dirmngr. It is expected that each of
these certificate files contain exactly one DER encoded
certificate in a file with the suffix ‘.crt’ or ‘.der’. dirmngr
reads those certificates on startup and when given a SIGHUP.
Certificates which are not readable or do not make up a proper
X.509 certificate are ignored; see the log file for details.
Applications using dirmngr (e.g. gpgsm) can request these
certificates to complete a trust chain in the same way as with
the extra-certs directory (see below).
Note that for OCSP responses the certificate specified using the
option --ocsp-signer is always considered valid to sign OCSP
requests.
/etc/gnupg/extra-certs
This directory may contain extra certificates which are
preloaded into the internal cache on startup. Applications using
dirmngr (e.g. gpgsm) can request cached certificates to complete
a trust chain. This is convenient in cases you have a couple
intermediate CA certificates or certificates usually used to
sign OCSP responses. These certificates are first tried before
going out to the net to look for them. These certificates must
also be DER encoded and suffixed with ‘.crt’ or ‘.der’.
~/.gnupg/crls.d
This directory is used to store cached CRLs. The ‘crls.d’ part
will be created by dirmngr if it does not exists but you need to
make sure that the upper directory exists.
Several options control the use of trusted certificates for TLS and
CRLs. Here is an Overview on the use and origin of those Root CA
certificates:
System
These System root certificates are used by: FIXME
The origin of the system provided certificates depends on the
platform. On Windows all certificates from the Windows System
Stores ROOT and CA are used.
On other platforms the certificates are read from the first file
found form this list: ‘/etc/ssl/ca-bundle.pem’,
‘/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt’, ‘/etc/pki/tls/cert.pem’,
‘/usr/local/share/certs/ca-root-nss.crt’, ‘/etc/ssl/cert.pem’.
GnuPG
The GnuPG specific certificates stored in the directory
‘/etc/gnupg/trusted-certs’ are only used to validate CRLs.
OpenPGP keyserver
For accessing the OpenPGP keyservers the only certificates used
are those set with the configuration option hkp-cacert.
OpenPGP keyserver pool
This is usually only one certificate read from the file
‘/usr/share/gnupg/gnupg/sks-keyservers.netCA.pem’. If this
certificate exists it is used to access the special keyservers
hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net (or ‘hkps://keys.gnupg.net’).
Please note that gpgsm accepts Root CA certificates for its own
purposes only if they are listed in its file ‘trustlist.txt’. dirmngr
does not make use of this list - except FIXME.
NOTES
To be able to see diagnostics it is often useful to put at least the
following lines into the configuration file ‘~/gnupg/dirmngr.conf’:
log-file ~/dirmngr.log
verbose
You may want to check the log file to see whether all desired root CA
certificates are correctly loaded.
To be able to perform OCSP requests you probably want to add the line:
allow-ocsp
To make sure that new options are read or that after the installation
of a new GnuPG versions the right dirmngr version is running, you
should kill an existing dirmngr so that a new instance is started as
needed by the other components:
gpgconf --kill dirmngr
Direct interfaction with the dirmngr is possible by using the command
gpg-connect-agent --dirmngr
Enter HELP at the prompt to see a list of commands and enter HELP
followed by a command name to get help on that command.
SIGNALS
A running dirmngr may be controlled by signals, i.e. using the kill
command to send a signal to the process.
Here is a list of supported signals:
SIGHUP This signal flushes all internally cached CRLs as well as any
cached certificates. Then the certificate cache is
reinitialized as on startup. Options are re-read from the
configuration file. Instead of sending this signal it is better
to use
gpgconf --reload dirmngr
SIGTERM
Shuts down the process but waits until all current requests are
fulfilled. If the process has received 3 of these signals and
requests are still pending, a shutdown is forced. You may also
use
gpgconf --kill dirmngr
instead of this signal
SIGINT Shuts down the process immediately.
SIGUSR1
This prints some caching statistics to the log file.
SEE ALSO
gpgsm(1), dirmngr-client(1)
The full documentation for this tool is maintained as a Texinfo manual.
If GnuPG and the info program are properly installed at your site, the
command
info gnupg
should give you access to the complete manual including a menu
structure and an index.
GnuPG 2.4.8 2025-02-19 DIRMNGR(8)
\- GnuPG's network access daemon