Up: Unattended Usage of GPG [Contents][Index]
The command --gen-key may be used along with the option --batch for unattended key generation. The parameters are either read from stdin or given as a file on the command line. The format of the parameter file is as follows:
Control statements:
Print text as diagnostic.
Suppress actual key generation (useful for syntax checking).
Perform the key generation. Note that an implicit commit is done at the next Key-Type parameter.
Do not write the key to the default or commandline given keyring but to filename. This must be given before the first commit to take place, duplicate specification of the same filename is ignored, the last filename before a commit is used. The filename is used until a new filename is used (at commit points) and all keys are written to that file. If a new filename is given, this file is created (and overwrites an existing one). For GnuPG versions prior to 2.1, both control statements must be given. For GnuPG 2.1 and later ‘%secring’ is a no-op.
Enable (or disable) a mode where the command passphrase is ignored and instead the usual passphrase dialog is used. This does not make sense for batch key generation; however the unattended key generation feature is also used by GUIs and this feature relinquishes the GUI from implementing its own passphrase entry code. These are global control statements and affect all future key genrations.
Since GnuPG version 2.1 it is not anymore possible to specify a passphrase for unattended key generation. The passphrase command is simply ignored and ‘%ask-passpharse’ is thus implicitly enabled. Using this option allows the creation of keys without any passphrase protection. This option is mainly intended for regression tests.
If given the keys are created using a faster and a somewhat less secure random number generator. This option may be used for keys which are only used for a short time and do not require full cryptographic strength. It takes only effect if used together with the control statement ‘%no-protection’.
General Parameters:
Starts a new parameter block by giving the type of the primary key. The algorithm must be capable of signing. This is a required parameter. algo may either be an OpenPGP algorithm number or a string with the algorithm name. The special value ‘default’ may be used for algo to create the default key type; in this case a ‘Key-Usage’ shall not be given and ‘default’ also be used for ‘Subkey-Type’.
The requested length of the generated key in bits. The default is returned by running the command ‘gpg2 --gpgconf-list’.
This is optional and used to generate a CSR or certificate for an already existing key. Key-Length will be ignored when given.
Space or comma delimited list of key usages. Allowed values are ‘encrypt’, ‘sign’, and ‘auth’. This is used to generate the key flags. Please make sure that the algorithm is capable of this usage. Note that OpenPGP requires that all primary keys are capable of certification, so no matter what usage is given here, the ‘cert’ flag will be on. If no ‘Key-Usage’ is specified and the ‘Key-Type’ is not ‘default’, all allowed usages for that particular algorithm are used; if it is not given but ‘default’ is used the usage will be ‘sign’.
This generates a secondary key (subkey). Currently only one subkey can be handled. See also ‘Key-Type’ above.
Length of the secondary key (subkey) in bits. The default is returned by running the command ‘gpg2 --gpgconf-list’".
Key usage lists for a subkey; similar to ‘Key-Usage’.
If you want to specify a passphrase for the secret key, enter it here. Default is not to use any passphrase.
The three parts of a user name. Remember to use UTF-8 encoding here. If you don’t give any of them, no user ID is created.
Set the expiration date for the key (and the subkey). It may either be entered in ISO date format (e.g. "20000815T145012") or as number of days, weeks, month or years after the creation date. The special notation "seconds=N" is also allowed to specify a number of seconds since creation. Without a letter days are assumed. Note that there is no check done on the overflow of the type used by OpenPGP for timestamps. Thus you better make sure that the given value make sense. Although OpenPGP works with time intervals, GnuPG uses an absolute value internally and thus the last year we can represent is 2105.
Set the creation date of the key as stored in the key information and which is also part of the fingerprint calculation. Either a date like "1986-04-26" or a full timestamp like "19860426T042640" may be used. The time is considered to be UTC. The special notation "seconds=N" may be used to directly specify a the number of seconds since Epoch (Unix time). If it is not given the current time is used.
Set the cipher, hash, and compression preference values for this key. This expects the same type of string as the sub-command ‘setpref’ in the --edit-key menu.
Add a designated revoker to the generated key. Algo is the public key algorithm of the designated revoker (i.e. RSA=1, DSA=17, etc.) fpr is the fingerprint of the designated revoker. The optional ‘sensitive’ flag marks the designated revoker as sensitive information. Only v4 keys may be designated revokers.
This is an optional parameter that specifies the preferred keyserver URL for the key.
This is an optional parameter only used with the status lines KEY_CREATED and KEY_NOT_CREATED. string may be up to 100 characters and should not contain spaces. It is useful for batch key generation to associate a key parameter block with a status line.
Here is an example on how to create a key:
$ cat >foo <<EOF
%echo Generating a basic OpenPGP key
Key-Type: DSA
Key-Length: 1024
Subkey-Type: ELG-E
Subkey-Length: 1024
Name-Real: Joe Tester
Name-Comment: with stupid passphrase
Name-Email: joe@foo.bar
Expire-Date: 0
Passphrase: abc
%pubring foo.pub
%secring foo.sec
# Do a commit here, so that we can later print "done" :-)
%commit
%echo done
EOF
$ gpg2 --batch --gen-key foo
[...]
$ gpg2 --no-default-keyring --secret-keyring ./foo.sec \
--keyring ./foo.pub --list-secret-keys
/home/wk/work/gnupg-stable/scratch/foo.sec
------------------------------------------
sec 1024D/915A878D 2000-03-09 Joe Tester (with stupid passphrase) <joe@foo.bar>
ssb 1024g/8F70E2C0 2000-03-09
If you want to create a key with the default algorithms you would use these parameters:
%echo Generating a default key
Key-Type: default
Subkey-Type: default
Name-Real: Joe Tester
Name-Comment: with stupid passphrase
Name-Email: joe@foo.bar
Expire-Date: 0
Passphrase: abc
%pubring foo.pub
%secring foo.sec
# Do a commit here, so that we can later print "done" :-)
%commit
%echo done
Up: Unattended Usage of GPG [Contents][Index]