NETPGPVERIFY(1) BSD General Commands Manual NETPGPVERIFY(1)NAMEnetpgpverify — standalone program for digital signature verification
SYNOPSISnetpgpverify--verify [--output=filename] [options] file ...
where the options for all commands are:
[--coredumps]
[--homedir=home-directory]
[--keyring=keyring]
[--userid=userid]
[--verbose]
DESCRIPTION
The netpgpverify complements the netpgp(1) program, and duplicates its
verification functionality in a single standalone program. The reason
for this duplication is simply because verification of digital signatures
is such a common operation that a single, much smaller, standalone pro‐
gram can be used.
The following commands are used to verify signatures:
--coredumps In normal processing, if an error occurs, the contents of
memory are saved to disk, and can be read using tools to
analyse behaviour. Unfortunately this can disclose infor‐
mation to people viewing the core dump, such as secret
keys, and passphrases protecting those keys. In normal
operation, netpgpverify will turn off the ability to save
core dumps on persistent storage, but selecting this option
will allow core dumps to be written to disk. This option
should be used wisely, and any core dumps should be deleted
in a secure manner when no longer needed.
--homedir home-directory
Keyrings are normally located, for historical reasons,
within the user's home directory in a subdirectory called
“.gnupg” and this option specifies an alternative location
in which to find that sub-directory.
--keyring keyring
This option specifies an alternative keyring to be used.
All keyring operations will be relative to this alternative
keyring.
--output specifies a filename to which verified output from a signed
file may be redirected. The default is to send the veri‐
fied output to stdout, and this may also be specified using
the “-” value.
--verbose This option can be used to view information during the
process of the netpgpverify requests.
SIGNING AND VERIFICATION
Verification of a file's signature is best viewed using the following
example:
% netpgp --sign --userid=agc@netbsd.org a
signature 2048/RSA (Encrypt or Sign) 1b68dcfcc0596823 2004-01-12
Key fingerprint: d415 9deb 336d e4cc cdfa 00cd 1b68 dcfc c059 6823
uid Alistair Crooks <alistair@hockley-crooks.com>
uid Alistair Crooks <agc@pkgsrc.org>
uid Alistair Crooks <agc@netbsd.org>
uid Alistair Crooks <agc@alistaircrooks.com>
uid Alistair Crooks (Yahoo!) <agcrooks@yahoo-inc.com>
encryption 2048/RSA (Encrypt or Sign) 79deb61e488eee74 2004-01-12
netpgp passphrase:
% netpgpverify a.gpg
Good signature for a.gpg made Thu Jan 29 03:06:00 2009
using RSA (Encrypt or Sign) key 1B68DCFCC0596823
signature 2048/RSA (Encrypt or Sign) 1b68dcfcc0596823 2004-01-12
Key fingerprint: d415 9deb 336d e4cc cdfa 00cd 1b68 dcfc c059 6823
uid Alistair Crooks <alistair@hockley-crooks.com>
uid Alistair Crooks <agc@pkgsrc.org>
uid Alistair Crooks <agc@netbsd.org>
uid Alistair Crooks <agc@alistaircrooks.com>
uid Alistair Crooks (Yahoo!) <agcrooks@yahoo-inc.com>
encryption 2048/RSA (Encrypt or Sign) 79deb61e488eee74 2004-01-12
%
In the example above, a signature is made on a single file called “a”
using a user identity corresponding to “agc@netbsd.org” and using the
netpgp(1) program. The key located for the user identity is displayed,
and the user is prompted to type in their passphrase. The resulting
file, called “a.gpg” is placed in the same directory. The second part of
the example shows a verification using netpgpverify of the signed file
taking place. The time and user identity of the signatory is displayed,
followed by a fuller description of the public key of the signatory. In
both cases, the exit value from the utility was a successful one.
EXIT STATUS
The netpgpverify utility will return 0 for success, 1 if the file's sig‐
nature does not match what was expected, or 2 if any other error occurs.
SEE ALSOnetpgp(1), libnetpgp(3), ssl(3), zlib(3)STANDARDS
The netpgpverify utility is designed to conform to IETF RFC 4880.
HISTORY
The netpgpverify command first appeared in NetBSD 6.0.
AUTHORS
Ben Laurie, Rachel Willmer, and was overhauled and rewritten by Alistair
Crooks ⟨agc@NetBSD.org⟩. This manual page was written by Alistair
Crooks.
BSD November 10, 2010 BSD