Provided by: gpgsm_2.0.22-3ubuntu1.4_amd64 bug

NAME

       gpgsm - CMS encryption and signing tool

SYNOPSIS

       gpgsm [--homedir dir] [--options file] [options] command [args]

DESCRIPTION

       gpgsm  is  a tool similar to gpg to provide digital encryption and signing services on X.509 certificates
       and the CMS protocol.  It is mainly used as a backend for S/MIME mail processing.  gpgsm includes a  full
       featured certificate management and complies with all rules defined for the German Sphinx project.

COMMANDS

       Commands are not distinguished from options except for the fact that only one command is allowed.

   Commands not specific to the function

       --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.

       --warranty
              Print warranty information.  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.

   Commands to select the type of operation

       --encrypt
              Perform  an  encryption.   The  keys  the  data  is  encrypted  too  must  be set using the option
              --recipient.

       --decrypt
              Perform a decryption; the type of input is automatically determined.  It may either be  in  binary
              form or PEM encoded; automatic determination of base-64 encoding is not done.

       --sign Create  a digital signature.  The key used is either the fist one found in the keybox or those set
              with the --local-user option.

       --verify
              Check a signature file for validity.  Depending on the arguments a detached signature may also  be
              checked.

       --server
              Run in server mode and wait for commands on the stdin.

       --call-dirmngr command [args]
              Behave as a Dirmngr client issuing the request command with the optional list of args.  The output
              of the Dirmngr is printed stdout.  Please note that file names given as arguments should  have  an
              absolute file name (i.e. commencing with / because they are passed verbatim to the Dirmngr and the
              working directory of the Dirmngr might not be the same as the one of this client.  Currently it is
              not possible to pass data via stdin to the Dirmngr.  command should not contain spaces.

              This  is  command is required for certain maintaining tasks of the dirmngr where a dirmngr must be
              able to call back to gpgsm.  See the Dirmngr manual for details.

       --call-protect-tool arguments
              Certain maintenance operations are done by an external  program  call  gpg-protect-tool;  this  is
              usually  not installed in a directory listed in the PATH variable.  This command provides a simple
              wrapper to access this tool.  arguments are passed verbatim to this command; use '--help' to get a
              list of supported operations.

   How to manage the certificates and keys

       --gen-key
              -This  command  allows  the creation of a certificate signing request.  It -is commonly used along
              with the --output option to save the -created CSR into  a  file.   If  used  with  the  --batch  a
              parameter  -file  is  used  to  create the CSR.  This command allows the creation of a certificate
              signing request or a self-signed certificate.  It is commonly used along with the --output  option
              to  save the created CSR or certificate into a file.  If used with the --batch a parameter file is
              used to create the CSR or certificate  and  it  is  further  possible  to  create  non-self-signed
              certificates.

       --list-keys

       -k     List  all  available  certificates stored in the local key database.  Note that the displayed data
              might be reformatted for better human readability and illegal  characters  are  replaced  by  safe
              substitutes.

       --list-secret-keys

       -K     List all available certificates for which a corresponding a secret key is available.

       --list-external-keys pattern
              List certificates matching pattern using an external server.  This utilizes the dirmngr service.

       --list-chain
              Same as --list-keys but also prints all keys making up the chain.

       --dump-cert

       --dump-keys
              List  all available certificates stored in the local key database using a format useful mainly for
              debugging.

       --dump-chain
              Same as --dump-keys but also prints all keys making up the chain.

       --dump-secret-keys
              List all available certificates for which a corresponding a secret key is available using a format
              useful mainly for debugging.

       --dump-external-keys pattern
              List  certificates  matching pattern using an external server.  This utilizes the dirmngr service.
              It uses a format useful mainly for debugging.

       --keydb-clear-some-cert-flags
              This is a debugging aid to reset certain flags in the key database which are used to cache certain
              certificate  stati.   It  is  especially useful if a bad CRL or a weird running OCSP responder did
              accidentally revoke certificate.  There is no security  issue  with  this  command  because  gpgsm
              always make sure that the validity of a certificate is checked right before it is used.

       --delete-keys pattern
              Delete  the keys matching pattern.  Note that there is no command to delete the secret part of the
              key directly.  In case you need to do this, you should run the  command  gpgsm  --dump-secret-keys
              KEYID  before you delete the key, copy the string of hex-digits in the ``keygrip'' line and delete
              the file consisting of these hex-digits and the suffix .key from the ‘private-keys-v1.d’ directory
              below our GnuPG home directory (usually ‘~/.gnupg’).

       --export [pattern]
              Export  all  certificates  stored  in the Keybox or those specified by the optional pattern. Those
              pattern consist of a list of user ids (see: [how-to-specify-a-user-id]).  When used along with the
              --armor  option  a  few  informational  lines  are  prepended  before  each  block.   There is one
              limitation: As there is no commonly agreed upon way to pack more  than  one  certificate  into  an
              ASN.1  structure,  the  binary  export (i.e. without using armor) works only for the export of one
              certificate.  Thus it is required to specify a  pattern  which  yields  exactly  one  certificate.
              Ephemeral certificate are only exported if all pattern are given as fingerprints or keygrips.

       --export-secret-key-p12 key-id
              Export  the  private  key and the certificate identified by key-id in a PKCS#12 format. When using
              along with the --armor option a few informational lines are prepended to the output.   Note,  that
              the  PKCS#12  format is not very secure and this command is only provided if there is no other way
              to exchange the private key. (see: [option --p12-charset])

       --import [files]
              Import the certificates from the PEM or binary encoded files as well as from signed-only messages.
              This command may also be used to import a secret key from a PKCS#12 file.

       --learn-card
              Read information about the private keys from the smartcard and import the certificates from there.
              This command utilizes the gpg-agent and in turn the scdaemon.

       --passwd user_id
              Change the passphrase of the private key belonging to the certificate specified as user_id.  Note,
              that changing the passphrase/PIN of a smartcard is not yet supported.

OPTIONS

       GPGSM features a bunch of options to control the exact behaviour and to change the default configuration.

   How to change the configuration

       These options are used to change the configuration and are usually found in the option file.

       --options file
              Reads  configuration  from  file  instead  of  from  the default per-user configuration file.  The
              default configuration file is named ‘gpgsm.conf’ and expected in the ‘.gnupg’  directory  directly
              below the home directory of the user.

       --homedir dir
              Set the name of the home directory to dir. If this option is not used, the home directory defaults
              to ‘~/.gnupg’.  It is only recognized when given on the command line.  It also overrides any  home
              directory  stated through the environment variable ‘GNUPGHOME’ or (on W32 systems) by means of the
              Registry entry HKCU\Software\GNU\GnuPG:HomeDir.

       -v

       --verbose
              Outputs additional information while running.  You can increase the verbosity  by  giving  several
              verbose commands to gpgsm, such as '-vv'.

       --policy-file filename
              Change the default name of the policy file to filename.

       --agent-program file
              Specify  an  agent  program  to  be  used  for  secret  key  operations.  The default value is the
              ‘/usr/local/bin/gpg-agent’.  This is only  used  as  a  fallback  when  the  environment  variable
              GPG_AGENT_INFO is not set or a running agent cannot be connected.

       --dirmngr-program file
              Specify  a  dirmngr  program to be used for CRL checks.  The default value is ‘/usr/sbin/dirmngr’.
              This is only used as a fallback when the environment variable DIRMNGR_INFO is not set or a running
              dirmngr cannot be connected.

       --prefer-system-dirmngr
              If a system wide dirmngr is running in daemon mode, first try to connect to this one.  Fallback to
              a pipe based server if this does not work.  Under Windows  this  option  is  ignored  because  the
              system dirmngr is always used.

       --disable-dirmngr
              Entirely disable the use of the Dirmngr.

       --no-secmem-warning
              Do not print a warning when the so called "secure memory" cannot be used.

       --log-file file
              When running in server mode, append all logging output to file.

   Certificate related options

       --enable-policy-checks

       --disable-policy-checks
              By default policy checks are enabled.  These options may be used to change it.

       --enable-crl-checks

       --disable-crl-checks
              By  default  the CRL checks are enabled and the DirMngr is used to check for revoked certificates.
              The disable option is most useful with an off-line network connection to suppress this check.

       --enable-trusted-cert-crl-check

       --disable-trusted-cert-crl-check
              By default the CRL for trusted root certificates are checked  like  for  any  other  certificates.
              This  allows  a  CA  to revoke its own certificates voluntary without the need of putting all ever
              issued certificates into a CRL.  The disable option may be used to switch this  extra  check  off.
              Due  to the caching done by the Dirmngr, there will not be any noticeable performance gain.  Note,
              that this also disables possible OCSP checks for trusted root certificates.  A more  specific  way
              of  disabling  this  check  is  by  adding  the  ``relax''  keyword  to  the  root  CA line of the
              ‘trustlist.txt--force-crl-refresh
              Tell the dirmngr to reload the CRL for each request.  For better  performance,  the  dirmngr  will
              actually optimize this by suppressing the loading for short time intervals (e.g. 30 minutes). This
              option is useful to make sure that a fresh CRL is available for certificates hold in  the  keybox.
              The  suggested  way of doing this is by using it along with the option --with-validation for a key
              listing command.  This option should not be used in a configuration file.

       --enable-ocsp

       --disable-ocsp
              By default OCSP checks are disabled.  The enable option may be used  to  enable  OCSP  checks  via
              Dirmngr.   If  CRL  checks are also enabled, CRLs will be used as a fallback if for some reason an
              OCSP request will not  succeed.   Note,  that  you  have  to  allow  OCSP  requests  in  Dirmngr's
              configuration  too  (option --allow-ocsp) and configure Dirmngr properly.  If you do not do so you
              will get the error code 'Not supported'.

       --auto-issuer-key-retrieve
              If a required certificate is missing while validating the chain of certificates, try to load  that
              certificate  from an external location.  This usually means that Dirmngr is employed to search for
              the certificate.  Note that this option makes a "web bug" like  behavior  possible.   LDAP  server
              operators  can  see  which keys you request, so by sending you a message signed by a brand new key
              (which you naturally will not have on your local keybox), the  operator  can  tell  both  your  IP
              address and the time when you verified the signature.

       --validation-model name
              This  option changes the default validation model.  The only possible values are "shell" (which is
              the default), "chain" which forces the use of the chain model and "steed"  for  a  new  simplified
              model.   The  chain  model is also used if an option in the ‘trustlist.txt’ or an attribute of the
              certificate requests it.  However the standard model (shell) is in that case always tried first.

       --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 will not be rejected due to an unknown critical extension.  Use
              this option with care because extensions are usually flagged as critical for a reason.

   Input and Output

       --armor

       -a     Create PEM encoded output.  Default is binary output.

       --base64
              Create Base-64 encoded output; i.e. PEM without the header lines.

       --assume-armor
              Assume the input data is PEM encoded.  Default is to autodetect the encoding but this is may fail.

       --assume-base64
              Assume the input data is plain base-64 encoded.

       --assume-binary
              Assume the input data is binary encoded.

       --p12-charset name
              gpgsm uses the UTF-8 encoding when encoding passphrases for PKCS#12 files.   This  option  may  be
              used  to force the passphrase to be encoded in the specified encoding name.  This is useful if the
              application used to import the key uses a different encoding and thus will not be able to import a
              file  generated  by  gpgsm.   Commonly used values for name are Latin1 and CP850.  Note that gpgsm
              itself automagically imports any file  with  a  passphrase  encoded  to  the  most  commonly  used
              encodings.

       --default-key user_id
              Use user_id as the standard key for signing.  This key is used if no other key has been defined as
              a signing key.  Note, that the first --local-users option also sets this key if  it  has  not  yet
              been set; however --default-key always overrides this.

       --local-user user_id

       -u user_id
              Set  the  user(s)  to  be  used  for  signing.   The  default is the first secret key found in the
              database.

       --recipient name

       -r     Encrypt to the user id name.  There are several ways a user id may be given (see: [how-to-specify-
              a-user-id]).

       --output file

       -o file
              Write output to file.  The default is to write it to stdout.

       --with-key-data
              Displays extra information with the --list-keys commands.  Especially a line tagged grp is printed
              which tells you the keygrip of a key.  This string is for example used as the  file  name  of  the
              secret key.

       --with-validation
              When  doing  a key listing, do a full validation check for each key and print the result.  This is
              usually a slow operation because it requires a CRL lookup and other operations.

              When used along with --import, a validation of the certificate to import is done and only imported
              if  it  succeeds the test.  Note that this does not affect an already available certificate in the
              DB.  This option is therefore useful to simply verify a certificate.

       --with-md5-fingerprint
              For standard key listings, also print the MD5 fingerprint of the certificate.

       --with-keygrip
              Include the keygrip in standard key listings.  Note that the keygrip is always listed  in  --with-
              colons mode.

   How to change how the CMS is created.

       --include-certs n
              Using n of -2 includes all certificate except for the root cert, -1 includes all certs, 0 does not
              include any certs, 1 includes only the signers cert and all other positive values include up to  n
              certificates starting with the signer cert.  The default is -2.

       --cipher-algo oid
              Use the cipher algorithm with the ASN.1 object identifier oid for encryption.  For convenience the
              strings 3DES,  AES  and  AES256  may  be  used  instead  of  their  OIDs.   The  default  is  3DES
              (1.2.840.113549.3.7).

       --digest-algo name
              Use  name  as the message digest algorithm.  Usually this algorithm is deduced from the respective
              signing certificate.  This option forces the use of the given algorithm and  may  lead  to  severe
              interoperability problems.

   Doing things one usually do not want to do.

       --extra-digest-algo name
              Sometimes  signatures  are broken in that they announce a different digest algorithm than actually
              used.  gpgsm uses a one-pass data processing model and thus needs to rely on the announced  digest
              algorithms to properly hash the data.  As a workaround this option may be used to tell gpg to also
              hash the data using the algorithm name; this slows processing down a  little  bit  but  allows  to
              verify  such  broken  signatures.   If  gpgsm  prints  an  error like ``digest algo 8 has not been
              enabled'' you may want to try this option, with 'SHA256' for name.

       --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").

       --with-ephemeral-keys
              Include ephemeral flagged keys in the output of key listings.  Note that they are included  anyway
              if the key specification for a listing is given as fingerprint or keygrip.

       --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
              This  option is only useful for debugging and the behaviour may change at any time without notice;
              using --debug-levels is the preferred method to select the debug verbosity.  FLAGS are bit encoded
              and may be given in usual C-Syntax. The currently defined bits are:

              0 (1)  X.509 or OpenPGP protocol related data

              1 (2)  values of big number integers

              2 (4)  low level crypto operations

              5 (32) memory allocation

              6 (64) caching

              7 (128)
                     show memory statistics.

              9 (512)
                     write hashed data to files named dbgmd-000*

              10 (1024)
                     trace Assuan protocol

       Note, that all flags set using this option may get overridden by --debug-level.

       --debug-all
              Same as --debug=0xffffffff

       --debug-allow-core-dump
              Usually  gpgsm  tries  to  avoid dumping core by well written code and by disabling core dumps for
              security reasons.  However, bugs are pretty durable beasts and to  squash  them  it  is  sometimes
              useful  to  have a core dump.  This option enables core dumps unless the Bad Thing happened before
              the option parsing.

       --debug-no-chain-validation
              This is actually not a debugging option but only  useful  as  such.   It  lets  gpgsm  bypass  all
              certificate chain validation checks.

       --debug-ignore-expiration
              This  is  actually  not  a  debugging  option  but  only useful as such.  It lets gpgsm ignore all
              notAfter dates, this is used by the regression tests.

       --fixed-passphrase string
              Supply the passphrase string to  the  gpg-protect-tool.   This  option  is  only  useful  for  the
              regression  tests  included  with  this  package and may be revised or removed at any time without
              notice.

       --no-common-certs-import
              Suppress the import of common certificates on keybox creation.

              All the long options may also be given in the configuration  file  after  stripping  off  the  two
              leading dashes.

HOW TO SPECIFY A USER ID

       There  are  different ways to specify a user ID to GnuPG.  Some of them are only valid for gpg others are
       only good for gpgsm.  Here is the entire list of ways to specify a key:

       By key Id.
              This format is deduced from the length of the string and its content or 0x prefix. The key  Id  of
              an  X.509  certificate are the low 64 bits of its SHA-1 fingerprint.  The use of key Ids is just a
              shortcut, for all automated processing the fingerprint should be used.

              When using gpg an exclamation mark (!) may be appended to force using  the  specified  primary  or
              secondary key and not to try and calculate which primary or secondary key to use.

              The  last  four  lines of the example give the key ID in their long form as internally used by the
              OpenPGP protocol. You can see the long key ID using the option --with-colons.

         234567C4
         0F34E556E
         01347A56A
         0xAB123456

         234AABBCC34567C4
         0F323456784E56EAB
         01AB3FED1347A5612
         0x234AABBCC34567C4

       By fingerprint.
              This format is deduced from the length of the string and its content or the 0x prefix.  Note, that
              only  the  20  byte  version  fingerprint  is  available  with  gpgsm  (i.e. the SHA-1 hash of the
              certificate).

              When using gpg an exclamation mark (!) may be appended to force using  the  specified  primary  or
              secondary key and not to try and calculate which primary or secondary key to use.

              The best way to specify a key Id is by using the fingerprint.  This avoids any ambiguities in case
              that there are duplicated key IDs.

         1234343434343434C434343434343434
         123434343434343C3434343434343734349A3434
         0E12343434343434343434EAB3484343434343434
         0xE12343434343434343434EAB3484343434343434

       (gpgsm also accepts colons between each pair of hexadecimal digits because this is the de-facto  standard
       on how to present X.509 fingerprints.)

       By exact match on OpenPGP user ID.
              This is denoted by a leading equal sign. It does not make sense for X.509 certificates.

         =Heinrich Heine <heinrichh@uni-duesseldorf.de>

       By exact match on an email address.
              This is indicated by enclosing the email address in the usual way with left and right angles.

         <heinrichh@uni-duesseldorf.de>

       By word match.
              All  words must match exactly (not case sensitive) but can appear in any order in the user ID or a
              subjects name.  Words are any sequences of letters, digits, the underscore and all characters with
              bit 7 set.

         +Heinrich Heine duesseldorf

       By exact match on the subject's DN.
              This is indicated by a leading slash, directly followed by the RFC-2253 encoded DN of the subject.
              Note that you can't use the string printed  by  "gpgsm  --list-keys"  because  that  one  as  been
              reordered  and  modified  for better readability; use --with-colons to print the raw (but standard
              escaped) RFC-2253 string

         /CN=Heinrich Heine,O=Poets,L=Paris,C=FR

       By exact match on the issuer's DN.
              This is indicated by a leading hash mark, directly followed by a slash and then directly  followed
              by  the  rfc2253  encoded  DN of the issuer.  This should return the Root cert of the issuer.  See
              note above.

         #/CN=Root Cert,O=Poets,L=Paris,C=FR

       By exact match on serial number and issuer's DN.
              This is indicated by a hash mark, followed by the hexadecimal representation of the serial number,
              then followed by a slash and the RFC-2253 encoded DN of the issuer. See note above.

         #4F03/CN=Root Cert,O=Poets,L=Paris,C=FR

       By keygrip
              This  is  indicated  by an ampersand followed by the 40 hex digits of a keygrip.  gpgsm prints the
              keygrip when using the command --dump-cert.  It does not yet work for OpenPGP keys.

         &D75F22C3F86E355877348498CDC92BD21010A480

       By substring match.
              This is the default mode but applications may want to explicitly  indicate  this  by  putting  the
              asterisk in front.  Match is not case sensitive.

         Heine
         *Heine

       Please note that we have reused the hash mark identifier which was used in old GnuPG versions to indicate
       the so called local-id.  It is not anymore used and there should be no  conflict  when  used  with  X.509
       stuff.

       Using  the  RFC-2253  format  of  DNs  has  the  drawback that it is not possible to map them back to the
       original encoding, however we don't have to do this because our key database stores this encoding as meta
       data.

EXAMPLES

         $ gpgsm -er goo@bar.net <plaintext >ciphertext

FILES

       There  are  a few configuration files to control certain aspects of gpgsm's operation. Unless noted, they
       are expected in the current home directory (see: [option --homedir]).

       gpgsm.conf
              This is the standard configuration file read by gpgsm 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
              default name may be changed on the command  line  (see:  [gpgsm-option  --options]).   You  should
              backup this file.

       policies.txt
              This  is  a  list  of  allowed  CA  policies.  This file should list the object identifiers of the
              policies line by line.  Empty lines and lines starting with a hash  mark  are  ignored.   Policies
              missing  in  this  file  and  not marked as critical in the certificate will print only a warning;
              certificates with policies marked as critical and not listed in this file will fail the  signature
              verification.  You should backup this file.

              For example, to allow only the policy 2.289.9.9, the file should look like this:

                # Allowed policies
                2.289.9.9

       qualified.txt
              This  is  the  list  of  root  certificates  used for qualified certificates.  They are defined as
              certificates capable of creating legally  binding  signatures  in  the  same  way  as  handwritten
              signatures  are.   Comments  start  with a hash mark and empty lines are ignored.  Lines do have a
              length limit but this is not a serious limitation as the  format  of  the  entries  is  fixed  and
              checked  by  gpgsm: A non-comment line starts with optional whitespace, followed by exactly 40 hex
              character, white space and a lowercased 2 letter country code.  Additional data delimited with  by
              a white space is current ignored but might late be used for other purposes.

              Note that even if a certificate is listed in this file, this does not mean that the certificate is
              trusted;  in  general  the  certificates  listed  in  this  file  need  to  be  listed   also   in
              ‘trustlist.txt’.

              This  is a global file an installed in the data directory (e.g. ‘/usr/share/gnupg/qualified.txt’).
              GnuPG installs a suitable file with  root  certificates  as  used  in  Germany.   As  new  Root-CA
              certificates  may  be issued over time, these entries may need to be updated; new distributions of
              this software should come with an  updated  list  but  it  is  still  the  responsibility  of  the
              Administrator to check that this list is correct.

              Everytime  gpgsm  uses  a  certificate  for signing or verification this file will be consulted to
              check whether the certificate under question has ultimately been issued by one of these  CAs.   If
              this  is  the  case  the  user  will  be informed that the verified signature represents a legally
              binding (``qualified'') signature.  When creating a signature using such a  certificate  an  extra
              prompt  will  be issued to let the user confirm that such a legally binding signature shall really
              be created.

              Because this software has not yet been  approved  for  use  with  such  certificates,  appropriate
              notices will be shown to indicate this fact.

       help.txt
              This is plain text file with a few help entries used with pinentry as well as a large list of help
              items for gpg and gpgsm.  The standard file has English help texts; to install localized  versions
              use  filenames  like  ‘help.LL.txt’  with  LL  denoting  the  locale.   GnuPG  comes with a set of
              predefined help files in the  data  directory  (e.g.  ‘/usr/share/gnupg/help.de.txt’)  and  allows
              overriding  of  any  help  item  by  help files stored in the system configuration directory (e.g.
              ‘/etc/gnupg/help.de.txt’).  For a reference of the help file's syntax, please  see  the  installed
              ‘help.txt’ file.

       com-certs.pem
              This  file is a collection of common certificates used to populated a newly created ‘pubring.kbx’.
              An administrator may replace this file with a custom one.  The format is a  concatenation  of  PEM
              encoded  X.509  certificates.   This  global  file  is  installed  in  the  data  directory  (e.g.
              ‘/usr/share/gnupg/com-certs.pem’).

       Note  that  on  larger  installations,  it  is  useful  to  put  predefined  files  into  the   directory
       ‘/etc/skel/.gnupg/’  so  that  newly  created  users start up with a working configuration.  For existing
       users a small helper script is provided to create these files (see: [addgnupghome]).

       For internal purposes gpgsm creates and maintains a few other files; they all live in in the current home
       directory (see: [option --homedir]).  Only gpgsm may modify these files.

       pubring.kbx
              This a database file storing the certificates as well as meta information.  For debugging purposes
              the tool kbxutil may be used to show the internal structure of this file.  You should backup  this
              file.

       random_seed
              This  content  of  this file is used to maintain the internal state of the random number generator
              across invocations.  The same file is used by other programs of this software too.

       S.gpg-agent
              If this file exists and the environment variable ‘GPG_AGENT_INFO’ is not set, gpgsm will first try
              to connect to this socket for accessing gpg-agent before starting a new gpg-agent instance.  Under
              Windows this socket (which in reality be a plain file describing a regular TCP listening port)  is
              the standard way of connecting the gpg-agent.

SEE ALSO

       gpg2(1), gpg-agent(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.