Re: Help meaning pgp: Can't check signature...

[brian moore <bem@cmc.net>]

On Tue, Dec 12, 2000 at 09:36:31PM +0100, Jonathan Gift wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've installed pgp, set up my publick key, and got rid of the majotrity
> of heading pgp referencing msgs. the only one left is:
> 
> 1. pgp: Signature made Monday...
> Which is a confirmation of the other's signature, I understand that.
> 2. gpg: Can't check sigature: public key not found
> 
> Now, is the latter because I'm not logged on to the net and it can't
> check a public keysite? Or because I haven't the senders public key?

Yes and Yes.

If you -had- the sender's public key, it wouldn't need to check a public
key server.

> Is it expected therefore when I've logged off my ISP? If not, how do I
> get rid of it.

Import a copy of the sender's key you your keyring.

> Q: The servers I was given doesn't work. is there an url for a
> keyserver?

For integrating into GPG (ie, so it will auto query)?  Add the following
to ~/.gnupg/options:

# GnuPG can import a key from a HKP keyerver if one is missing
# for certain operations. Is you set this option to a keyserver
# you will be asked in such a case whether GnuPG should try to
# import the key from that server (server do syncronize with each
# others and DNS Round-Robin may give you a random server each time).
# Use "host -l pgp.net | grep www" to figure out a keyserver.
keyserver wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net

Note that http://wwwkeys.us.pgp.net/ has a web-based interface, so you
can look up a public key, save it to a file and use 'gpg --import-key < file' 
to import it.  [And note that the '--import-key' isn't really needed...
gnupg is smart enough to see that it's a key and figure out the only
thing you really can do with a key is import it....]

-- 
CueCat decoder .signature by Larry Wall:
#!/usr/bin/perl -n
printf "Serial: %s Type: %s Code: %s\n", map { tr/a-zA-Z0-9+-/ -_/; $_ = unpack
'u', chr(32 + length()*3/4) . $_; s/\0+$//; $_ ^= "C" x length; } /\.([^.]+)/g;