PGP Key Server Commands

Extract a key from the server

Submit a key to the server

Back to the Keyserver home page.

Extracting a key

1. Select either the "Index" or "Verbose Index" check box. The "Verbose" option also displays all signatures on displayed keys.
2. Until further notice, the keys are stored in four public key rings. Select one of them. Pubring1 contains keys received after October 13, 1997, pubring2 contains keys received between February 27, 1997 and October 13, 1997, while pubring3 contains keys received between April 23, 1996 and February 27,
3. Type ID you want to search for in the "Search String" box.
4. Press the "Do the search!" key.
5. The server will return a (verbose) list of keys on the server matching the given ID. (The ID can be any valid argument to a pgp -kv(v) command. If you want to look up a key by its hexadecimal KeyID, remember to prefix the ID with "0x".)
6. The returned index will have hypertext links for every bracket-delimited identifier (i.e. <klobucar@e5.ijs.si>). Clicking on the hypertext link will display an ASCII-armored version of the listed public key.
7. If you didn't find anything try another pubring.

• Currently, hypertext links are only generated for text found between matching brackets. (It's a common convention to put your e-mail address inside brackets somewhere in the key ID string.)

Submitting a new key to the server

1. Enter your e-mail address in the space provided. The server will e-mail a confirmation to that address after it has processed your key.
2. Cut-and-paste an ASCII-armored version of your public key into the text box.
3. Press "Submit".

• The script that executes when you push the "Submit" button doesn't actually frob the keyserver database directly. It takes your e-mail address and ASCII-armored key and forges an incoming mail message to pgp-public-keys@e5.ijs.si. This forged mail message then gets processed just like an incoming ADD request to the mail server, which is why there's up to a 10 minute delay.