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NAME

       dpkg-sig - Debian package archive (.deb) signature generation and
       verification tool

SYNOPSIS

       dpkg-sig [options] --sign role [archive|changes]+

       dpkg-sig [options] --verify [archive]+

       dpkg-sig [options] --verify-role role [archive]+

       dpkg-sig [options] --verify-exact member [archive]+

       dpkg-sig [options] --list [archive]+

       dpkg-sig [options] --get-hashes role [archive|changes]+

       dpkg-sig [options] --sign-hashes [hashes-archive]+

       dpkg-sig [options] --write-signature [hashes-archive]+

DESCRIPTION

       dpkg-sig creates and verifies signatures on Debian archives
       (.deb-files).

       Use higher-level tools to install and remove packages from your system,
       and to verify a signature as acceptable for your system.

       A usage example can be found at the end of this man page.

ACTION OPTIONS

       --sign, -s role
           Signs a standard-conforming Debian archive. role gives the name of
           the signature (usually ’builder’ for the builder of the .deb).  The
           signature is made using your default key, unless specified via any
           explicit or implicit option (see below).

           If one or more .changes-files are given, the md5sums inside the
           .changes file(s) are also updated.

           If a .changes file was gpg-signed, the signature is removed when
           updating the md5sums.

       --verify, -c; --verify-role; --verify-exact
           Verifies a signature on the given archive file. --verify and -c
           just check all signatures; --verify-role verifies all signatures
           with a given role, and --verify-exact wants the exact name of the
           archive member (without the leading _gpg). However, both commands
           also accept perl regular expressions as the name.

           All verify variants output (in turn for each signature) either a
           line consisting of GOODSIG, role, gpg-fingerprint and signature
           time (in seconds since 1970-1-1 0:00:00 UTC), or BADSIG.

           Starting from version 0.12, dpkg-sig returns 2 if a bad signature
           was found when trying to verify. If an unknown key was used to sign
           a .deb, dpkg-sig returns 3.

       --list, -l, -t
           Lists all names inside the deb that look like a signature.

       --get-hashes, --sign-hashes, --write-signature
           --get-hashes creates an ar(1) archive containing a control file
           part and files with the digests of all the .debs specified on the
           command-line or named in the .changes file(s) specified on the
           command-line.

           After that, you can transfer this (small) file to another machine,
           for example an offline system containing your gpg keys. (Yep,
           that’s paranoid!)

           --sign-hashes then signs this file containing the digests (in fact,
           it replaces the digests parts with their signatures).

           Now transfer the signed file back to the machine where you created
           the hashes and use --write-signature to add the signatures from the
           archive to the deb.

OPTIONS

       -m maintainer
           Specify the maintainer name to be used for signing.

       -e maintainer
           Same as -m but takes precedence.

       -k keyid
           Specify the key ID to be used for signing; overrides any -e or -m
           option.

       --verbose
           Get some more details.

       --batch=1
           Gurantees that the non-verbose output will not change. Use this if
           you want to parse the output.

       --also-v3-sig
           The signature format changed between version 0.10 and 0.11. If you
           want to verify old signatures too, try this switch.

       --also-v2-sig
           The signature format changed between version 0.2 and 0.3. If you
           want to verify old signatures too, try this switch.

       --cache-passphrase, -p
           Caches the gpg-passphrase inside dpkg-sig. This needs the suggested
           package "libterm-readkey-perl".

           Be warned: Doing this is insecure, dpkg-sig doesn’t protect the
           memory it uses to store the passphrase.

       --sign-changes, -a [ no | auto | yes | full | force_full ]
           Tells whether also sign the .changes and .dsc-files. The default is
           auto, which means that the .changes-file is re-signed if it was
           signed before.

           The other values are no (don’t sign .changes, and remove an
           existing signature), yes (always add a signature to .changes), full
           (always add a signature to .changes, and also sign the .dsc-file if
           there was no previous signature; otherwise ask) and force_full
           (always add a signature to both the .changes and .dsc files).

       --remote-dpkg-sig, -r path
           Use this if you want to specify where dpkg-sig can find the dpkg-
           sig executable on the remote machine.

           This is useful if you’re not able/allowed to install dpkg-sig as a
           .deb.  To do that, copy the script to something like ~/bin/dpkg-sig
           on the remote system. After that, you can call your local dpkg-sig
           with something like the following to use the remote
           signing/verifying features:

           "dpkg-sig --sign builder -r ~/bin/dpkg-sig
           ssh://user@host:~/some-deb_version_arch.changes"

       --remote-ssh-port, -o port
           Port of the sshd on the remote host. Default value is 22.

MORE OPTIONS

       These options should normally not be used, but are here for
       completeness.  Be warned: Use them only if you really know what you are
       doing.

       --gpgoptions, -g gpg options
           Use this to pass arbitrary options to gpg(1) whenever a file is
           signed. As this can lead to broken signatures, test your changes
           carefully.

       --passphrase-file, -f passphrase file
           Tells gpg to use the passphrase in file to sign.

           Be warned: Doing this is insecure, DON’T use this feature.
           However, in some cases (e.g. automatic signing on a buildd) this
           could be useful, and is still better than using a gpg-key without
           passphrase. You can gain at least some security by putting this
           file on a ramdisk, but it would be better to use gpg-agent(1).

CONFIGURATION VARIABLES

       The two configuration files /etc/devscripts.conf and ~/.devscripts are
       sourced in that order to set configuration variables.  Command line
       options can be used to override configuration file settings.
       Environment variable settings are ignored for this purpose.  The
       currently recognised variables are:

       DEBSIGN_MAINT
           This is the -m option.

       DEBSIGN_KEYID, DPKGSIG_KEYID
           This is the -k option, and DPKGSIG_KEYID has most precedence.

       DPKGSIG_SIGN_CHANGES
           This is the --sign-changes option. Valid values are no, auto, yes,
           full and force_full.

       DPKGSIG_CACHE_PASS
           This is the --cache-passphrase option. Set this to a true value to
           enable it.

SIGNATURE FORMAT

       The signatures created by dpkg-sig are added in a strict standard-
       conforming way to the .deb archive file. The signature itself is made
       on a file formatted like a Debian control file. The fields of this file
       are: Version, specifying a dpkg-sig file version number; Signer, giving
       the name of the signer; Date and Role, and finally Files, which gives
       the digests of the prior contents of the .deb archive file.  Note that
       this includes any prior signatures made by dpkg-sig. Thus it is
       possible to verify any signature by hand with just ar(1), md5sum(1),
       sha1sum(1) and gpg(1).  Signing a list of digests has the advantage
       that it is possible to perform remote signatures without transferring
       the whole archive file.  This does require one to trust the remote
       machine, though!

       Further details can be found at <http://dpkg-sig.turmzimmer.net/>.

REMOTE SIGNING

       dpkg-sig can sign remote files using ssh(1) without transferring the
       whole file to the local machine, or the key to the remote machine.
       Simply specify the file with "ssh://[user@]machine:/path/to/file", and
       have dpkg-sig installed on the remote machine.  (See also the
       --remote-dpkg-sig option above.)

       Remote signing supports the usual filename globbing.

       Remote signing has been tested, but is at the moment considered a more
       experimental feature.

BUGS, TODO

       dpkg-sig should be able to also verify signatures made by older code.
       This may be added in a later version.

       dpkg-sig assumes that any given archive is strictly
       standard-compatible.  This is valid for archives created by dpkg-deb -
       but if you’re not sure about a archive, verify this yourself, or live
       with the risk of a bad signature.

       More documentation about the signature format should be added.

       Deal better with expired etc. keys and signatures.

       Better inclusion into the other tools like dpkg-buildpackage.

       And of course: Still missing is testing, testing and testing dpkg-sig.

USAGE EXAMPLE

       A typical use is to sign packages before a (maintainer-)upload. This
       can be done by running dpkg-buildpackage and afterwards calling
       "dpkg-sig --sign builder *.changes".

       If you want to do all signing with dpkg-sig you could run
       "dpkg-buildpackage -uc -us" and afterwards call "dpkg-sig --sign
       builder --sign-changes full *.changes".  If you do this, there is no
       need to call debsign any more, as dpkg-sig does all the signing for
       you.

       If you don’t want to type in your passphrase multiple times, then you
       could add the option --cache-passphrase.

       The options --sign-changes and --cache-passphrase could be replaced
       with setting the variables DPKGSIG_SIGN_CHANGES respectivly
       DPKGSIG_CACHE_PASS (set the later one set to a true value) in
       ~/.devscripts.

       The key-id is automatically set from /etc/devscripts.conf and
       ~/.devscripts, but could be overriden via the -m, -e or -k command line
       options (see above).

SEE ALSO

       deb(5), debsign(1), dpkg-deb(8), /usr/share/doc/dpkg-sig/

AUTHOR

       dpkg-sig and this manpage were written by Andreas Barth and Marc
       Brockschmidt. They are Copyright (C) 2003-2006 by them and released
       under the GNU General Public Licence version 2 or later; there is NO
       WARRANTY.  See /usr/share/doc/dpkg-sig/copyright and
       /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL for details. Some parts of this manpage
       are taken from debsign.