&apt-email;
&apt-product;
<!-- The last update date -->
- <date>2012-06-09T00:00:00Z</date>
+ <date>2016-07-07T00:00:00Z</date>
</refentryinfo>
<refmeta>
by apt to authenticate packages. Packages which have been
authenticated using these keys will be considered trusted.
</para>
+ <para>
+ Note that if usage of <command>apt-key</command> is desired the additional
+ installation of the GNU Privacy Guard suite (packaged in
+ <package>gnupg</package>) is required. For this reason alone the programatic
+ usage (especially in package maintainerscripts!) is strongly discouraged.
+ Further more the output format of all commands is undefined and can and does
+ change whenever the underlying commands change. <command>apt-key</command> will
+ try to detect such usage and generates warnings on stderr in these cases.
+ </para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1><title>Commands</title>
&synopsis-param-filename; or if the filename is <literal>-</literal>
from standard input.
</para>
-
+ <para>
+ It is critical that keys added manually via <command>apt-key</command> are
+ verified to belong to the owner of the repositories they claim to be for
+ otherwise the &apt-secure; infrastructure is completely undermined.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Instead of using this command a keyring can be placed directly in the
+ <filename>/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/</filename> directory with a descriptive name
+ (same rules for filename apply as for &apt-conf; files) and "<literal>gpg</literal>"
+ as file extension.
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term><option>list</option></term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>list</option>, <option>finger</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
- List trusted keys.
+ List trusted keys with fingerprints.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term><option>finger</option></term>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- List fingerprints of trusted keys.
-
- </para>
-
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
<varlistentry><term><option>adv</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
-
- Pass advanced options to gpg. With adv --recv-key you can download the
- public key.
-
+ Pass advanced options to gpg. With <command>adv --recv-key</command> you
+ can e.g. download key from keyservers directly into the the trusted set of
+ keys. Note that there are <emphasis>no</emphasis> checks performed, so it is
+ easy to completely undermine the &apt-secure; infrastructure if used without
+ care.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term><option>update</option></term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>update</option> (deprecated)</term>
<listitem>
<para>
-
Update the local keyring with the archive keyring and remove from
the local keyring the archive keys which are no longer valid.
The archive keyring is shipped in the <literal>archive-keyring</literal> package of your
distribution, e.g. the &keyring-package; package in &keyring-distro;.
-
</para>
-
+ <para>
+ Note that a distribution does not need to and in fact should not use
+ this command any longer and instead ship keyring files in the
+ <filename>/etc/apt/trusted.gpg</filename> directory directly as this
+ avoids a dependency on <package>gnupg</package> and it is easier to manage
+ keys by simply adding and removing files for maintainers and users alike.
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
&file-trustedgpg;
- <varlistentry><term><filename>/etc/apt/trustdb.gpg</filename></term>
- <listitem><para>Local trust database of archive keys.</para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>&keyring-filename;</term>
- <listitem><para>Keyring of &keyring-distro; archive trusted keys.</para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>&keyring-removed-filename;</term>
- <listitem><para>Keyring of &keyring-distro; archive removed trusted keys.</para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
</variablelist>
</refsect1>