GPG-pubkeys

[Jeff Johnson]

On Sep 11, 2006, at 10:50 AM, Basil Chupin wrote:

> Christoph Thiel wrote:
>> On Sat, 9 Sep 2006, Basil Chupin wrote:
>>> Further to the earlier thread, "F**** annoying unavailable keys",  
>>> but on a slightly different tack, is there a way to make smart to  
>>> simply *accept* an offered gpg-key when smart is upgrading a  
>>> package rather than have it sit like a shag on a rock waiting for  
>>> me (for example) to click on YES so that smart can continue with  
>>> the download of the package?
>> This would render any kind of key checking useless, as smart would  
>> accept any key that's available on the configured keyserver.
>> I'm currently looking into enabling -y / --yes to work with key  
>> checking as well, so you could just use "smart upgrade -y" then...  
>> however, it's just like completly turning of key checking in the end.
>
> I am just a bit lost here....
>
> I don't remember having to accept a gpg-key from each and every  
> source of upgrades for my OS (SUSE) but only 2 or possibly 3 sites  
> had to have their gpgs accepted or rejected (but who in their right  
> mind would do that anyway?). So, what is the big deal about these  
> gpg-keys when they are not universally used?
>
> Or have I missed something (more than likely!) and the use of gpg- 
> keys is an integral part of any upgrades from any source and smart  
> just will not so any upgrades unless the necessary key is accepted?
>
> I simply don't know how or why these keys play such a "vital" role  
> in smart's upgrade process.
>

Public keys are a vital part of insuring that a rpm package has not  
been tampered with.

Public key management, new in recent smart, basically
	Is it okay to import this public key (Y/n)?
requires interaction with the end-user for new public keys.

Meanwhile, there are other ways to distribute and install public keys  
that
do not involve human interaction. E.g. importing the handful of  
public keys
for the repository uses will avoid the necessity of answering yes  
mindlessly.

73 de Jeff