[arch-dev-public] Call for review: keyringctl as tooling for a curated keyring

Levente Polyak anthraxx at archlinux.org
Tue Oct 26 00:59:03 UTC 2021


Hi all,

to mitigate different issues with the current status of PGP keyservers 
and to simplify the management of our keyring we worked towards 
exploring a new way to handle our keyring:

The idea is to have a curated keyring whose source of truth is the 
repository itself without relying on external component to collect the 
WoT. The repository will consist of atomic files representing PGP 
packets which a directory structure logically combines into individual 
certificates. The advantage is that a new signature is literally just a 
new independent file as a merge request against the repository which is 
also very easy to audit.

David and me have spent quite some time to develop keyringctl [0]. This 
tool will provide a convenient UX to work with, and inspect the 
decomposed certificates. Furthermore it will also be responsible to join 
all certificates into a keyring and export ownertrust and revocation 
status as pacman requires.

For now bootstrap the keyring directory from the old PGP data by:

 > ./keyringctl import --main master master-revoked
 > ./keyringctl import packager packager-revoked


We are calling for review and testing specifically for the following:

- Try to find bugs by bench testing the commands with real world use
   cases and files. Some usage examples: [1]

- have individual people verify the pacman compatible artifacts created
   by the `build` command.

cheers,
David & Levente


[0] 
https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/archlinux-keyring/-/merge_requests/24
[1] 
https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/archlinux-keyring/-/blob/feature/curated-keyring/README.md#usage
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