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On a fresh Ubuntu 16.04 install, I would like to use gpg to cypher my database backups, but I can't have the gpg-agent working.

postgres@db:~$ gpg -s test.txt

You need a passphrase to unlock the secret key for
user: "Nicolas Remond <[email protected]>"
2048-bit RSA key, ID F5DECA47, created 2016-11-03

gpg: gpg-agent is not available in this session
Enter passphrase:

Also, it seems that a gpg-agent is running as I did the following before:

postgres@db:~$ gpg-agent
gpg-agent[1715]: no gpg-agent running in this session
postgres@db:~$ gpg-connect-agent /bye
gpg-connect-agent: no running gpg-agent - starting '/usr/bin/gpg-agent'
gpg-connect-agent: waiting for the agent to come up ... (5s)
gpg-connect-agent: connection to agent established
postgres@db:~$ pidof gpg-agent
1762

And the gpg config has the use-agent setting:

postgres@dbmaster0:~$ cat ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf | grep use-agent
# For Ubuntu we now use-agent by default to support more automatic
use-agent

What am I missing ?

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10
  • Start the agent with --log-file [myfile] and see if it gives you any errors in the log.
    – Raniz
    Dec 19, 2016 at 12:50
  • The right error message I have is gpg: gpg-agent is not available in this session. If I had a log how you suggest, all I have get is : 2016-12-19 13:39:39 gpg-agent[10957] gpg-agent (GnuPG) 2.1.11 started
    – n1r3
    Dec 19, 2016 at 13:43
  • I tried to manually set GPG_AGENT_INFO, but I don't know how to know what to set ... that's when I got a gpg: problem with the agent - disabling agent use.
    – n1r3
    Dec 19, 2016 at 13:45
  • As root, setting export GPG_AGENT_INFO=/var/lib/postgresql/.gnupg/S.gpg-agent:0:1 works, but not as a user. Also, it seems that I would have to do that manually, no?
    – n1r3
    Dec 19, 2016 at 13:45
  • Did you add this GPG_TTY=$(tty) export GPG_TTY to your .bashrc file as stated in the _man gpg-agent page ?
    – George Udosen
    Dec 20, 2016 at 17:36

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
15

Answering myself in case someone else is stuck on this.

On Ubuntu 16.04, the default versions are:

    # gpg --version
    gpg (GnuPG) 1.4.20

and 

    # gpg-agent --version
    gpg-agent (GnuPG) 2.1.11

They are not compatible. It is mandatory to use GPG2:

    # gpg2 --version
    gpg (GnuPG) 2.1.11
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2

The solution is to install gpgv2 :

sudo apt install gpgv2

This is because gpg-agent that comes with Ubuntu is version 2 and it tries to connect to gpg with version 2. But Ubuntu has gpg version 1 installed.

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2
  • 3
    probably you meant gnupg2
    – Dmitriusan
    Feb 23, 2018 at 12:30
  • No, it only worked after installing gpgv2. I tried with gnupg2 but it didn't work.
    – phoxd
    Mar 2, 2021 at 23:24

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