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dirmngr-client - Tool to access the Dirmngr services

NAME  SYNOPSIS  DESCRIPTION  RETURN VALUE  OPTIONS  SEE ALSO 

NAME

dirmngr-client − Tool to access the Dirmngr services

SYNOPSIS

dirmngr-client [options] [certfile|pattern]

DESCRIPTION

The dirmngr−client is a simple tool to contact a running dirmngr and test whether a certificate has been revoked — either by being listed in the corresponding CRL or by running the OCSP protocol. If no dirmngr is running, a new instances will be started but this is in general not a good idea due to the huge performance overhead.

The usual way to run this tool is either:

dirmngr−client acert

or

dirmngr−client <acert

Where acert is one DER encoded (binary) X.509 certificates to be tested.

RETURN VALUE

dirmngr−client returns these values:

0

The certificate under question is valid; i.e. there is a valid CRL available and it is not listed there or the OCSP request returned that that certificate is valid.

1

The certificate has been revoked

2 (and other values)

There was a problem checking the revocation state of the certificate. A message to stderr has given more detailed information. Most likely this is due to a missing or expired CRL or due to a network problem.

OPTIONS

dirmngr−client may be called with the following options:
−−version

Print the program version and licensing information. Note that you cannot abbreviate this command.

−−help, −h

Print a usage message summarizing the most useful command-line options. Note that you cannot abbreviate this command.

−−quiet, −q

Make the output extra brief by suppressing any informational messages.

−v

−−verbose

Outputs additional information while running. You can increase the verbosity by giving several verbose commands to dirmngr, such as ‘−vv’.

−−pem

Assume that the given certificate is in PEM (armored) format.

−−ocsp

Do the check using the OCSP protocol and ignore any CRLs.

−−force−default−responder

When checking using the OCSP protocol, force the use of the default OCSP responder. That is not to use the Reponder as given by the certificate.

−−ping

Check whether the dirmngr daemon is up and running.

−−cache−cert

Put the given certificate into the cache of a running dirmngr. This is mainly useful for debugging.

−−validate

Validate the given certificate using dirmngr’s internal validation code. This is mainly useful for debugging.

−−load−crl

This command expects a list of filenames with DER encoded CRL files. With the option −−url URLs are expected in place of filenames and they are loaded directly from the given location. All CRLs will be validated and then loaded into dirmngr’s cache.

−−lookup

Take the remaining arguments and run a lookup command on each of them. The results are Base-64 encoded outputs (without header lines). This may be used to retrieve certificates from a server. However the output format is not very well suited if more than one certificate is returned.

−−url

−u

Modify the lookup and load−crl commands to take an URL.

−−local

−l

Let the lookup command only search the local cache.

−−squid−mode

Run dirmngr-client in a mode suitable as a helper program for Squid’s external_acl_type option.

SEE ALSO

dirmngr(8), gpgsm(1)

The full documentation for this tool is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If GnuPG and the info program are properly installed at your site, the command

info gnupg

should give you access to the complete manual including a menu structure and an index.


Updated 2026-06-01 - jenkler.se | uex.se