Understanding error output when a subkey expires

[Werner Koch]

On Thu, 22 May 2025 11:12, jman said:

> - "KEY_CONSIDERED <fingerprint> 3"
> uses a flag (3) which is not documented (afaics)

*** KEY_CONSIDERED <fpr> <flags>
    Issued to explain the lookup of a key.  FPR is the hexified
    fingerprint of the primary key.  The bit values for FLAGS are:

    - 1 :: The key has not been selected.
    - 2 :: All subkeys of the key are expired or have been revoked.

Thus 3 means "The key has not been selected." and "All subkeys of the
key are expired or have been revoked."

> - "INV_SGNR 9" means "unusable sender, Not a secret key"
> I expected the error to be "Key expired"?

You see several status messages. This one

    are issued for each unusable recipient/sender. The reasons codes
    currently in use are:

> - "FAILURE sign 54" means "failure to sign"
> the error code is also not documented


  $ gpg-error 54
  54 = (0, 54) = (GPG_ERR_SOURCE_UNKNOWN, GPG_ERR_UNUSABLE_SECKEY) =
  (Unspecified source, Unusable secret key)

> General thought: I see a debug info that I find a bit confusing and I
> need to go to the source code repository to get some clues, so as a

You may want to use the gpgme interface which interprets the status
codes for you and returns higher level info.  There is also a
gpgme-json tool as a kind of language binding to gpgme.

> user I wish gnupg could emit less confusing a little more /human/
> parsable info.

Human parseable info is shown (you may want to use --verbose) but should
not be used by a script etc. because we don't provide this as a stable
API.


Shalom-Salam,

   Werner

-- 
The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that
refuse military service.             - A. Einstein
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