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Saw an exchange of correspondence on the IRC about adding gpg keys to a
smart card
For those interested, I cheated and even then got things wrong...
1/ I paid to join www.fsfe.org to put some money into keeping free software
2/ Got the card and follow the directions
a) Installed the appropriate drivers
https://www.fsfe.org/en/card/howto/card_reader_howto_udev
b) Then tried to set up my card with subkeys only.
http://www.fsfe.org/en/card/howto/subkey_howto
Here is where I went wrong: at step 4.2.1: addcardkey
What happened is that the keys did not transfer over smoothly, 2
sub-keys, but not the third. To cut a long story short I ended up
deleting my original decryption subkey and had to obtain a new GPG key
Recommended solution
- Back up your entire .gnupg directory. The whole thing and store
it someplace safe. Check that the back up is good (I know the
bleeding obvious, my back up was not good)
Check that you have a revocation key just in case
- Then run addcardkey. If you get a problem, then remove the card from
the reader. Insert and retry. This worked
- Follow the rest of the directions
- check that the card works. Then and ONLY then should you upload your
new key to the key servers
If all goes pear shaped, go back to your back up .gnupg and restore
the directory and start again
Since then the card has worked like a dream (I am running Debian Etch).
Couple of points to note:
- Your signature key will have changed
- Your decryption key will have changed: therefore if you receive an
email to your previous key then you will addback your old key
If I can be of any help, please let me know: nick is henry on the irc.
Apologies if I forget to say I am away...
PS. Next step (I have a lot of those!) is to add my ssh keys to it
--
Henry
Sat Mar 24 14:01:42 GMT 2007
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