Add GPG signature using Windows Subsystem for Linux

Question

Started by installing Windows Subsystem for Linux with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

Then, installed rng-tools by executing this command:

sudo apt-get install rng-tools

and executing the following command

gpg --gen-key

generated an RSA key with size 3072 expiring in 2022-03-16.

Thing is, I wanted to specify a 2048 bits with no expiration date.

My previous experience using Ubuntu/Debian environment following the steps above always asked which kind of passphrase I wanted, the keysize, how long the key should be valid, etc.

Answer 1

Try using gpg --gen-key --interactive or gpg --full-generate-key for a more full feature set (selection of type of key, etc.).

If it didn't prompt you for details, then somehow your gen-key system is using defaults pulled from a file or a configuration set somewhere. Usually, I always use gpg --full-generate-key to get all the prompts I expect to get (but I'm old-school that way).

(This said, something must be odd in your WSL environment - gpg --gen-key works as expected and prompts for data in my freshly configured WSL + 18.04 LTS environment)