How To Install gnome-keysign on Ubuntu 18.04
Introduction
In this tutorial we learn how to install gnome-keysign on Ubuntu 18.04.
What is gnome-keysign
gnome-keysign is:
GNOME Keysign is a tool for signing OpenPGP keys.
Its purpose is to ease signing other peoples’ keys. It is similar to caff, PIUS, or monkeysign. In fact, it is influenced a lot by these tools and either reimplements ideas or reuses code. Consider either of the above mentioned tools when you need a much more mature codebase.
In contrast to caff or monkeysign, this tool enables you to sign a key without contacting a key server. It downloads an authenticated copy of the key from the other party. For now, the key is authenticated by its fingerprint which is securely transferred via a QR code. Alternatively, the user may type the fingerprint manually, assuming that it has been transferred securely via the audible channel.
After having obtained an authentic copy of the key, its UIDs are signed. The signatures are then encrypted and sent via email. In contrast to monkeysign, xdg-email is used to pop up a pre-filled email composer windows of the mail client the user has configured to use. This greatly reduces complexity as no SMTP configuration needs to be obtained and gives the user a well known interface.
There are three methods to install gnome-keysign on Ubuntu 18.04. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.
Install gnome-keysign Using apt-get
Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.
sudo apt-get update
After updating apt database, We can install gnome-keysign using apt-get by running the following command:
sudo apt-get -y install gnome-keysign
Install gnome-keysign Using apt
Update apt database with apt using the following command.
sudo apt update
After updating apt database, We can install gnome-keysign using apt by running the following command:
sudo apt -y install gnome-keysign
Install gnome-keysign Using aptitude
If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.
sudo aptitude update
After updating apt database, We can install gnome-keysign using aptitude by running the following command:
sudo aptitude -y install gnome-keysign
How To Uninstall gnome-keysign on Ubuntu 18.04
To uninstall only the gnome-keysign package we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get remove gnome-keysign
Uninstall gnome-keysign And Its Dependencies
To uninstall gnome-keysign and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu 18.04, we can use the command below:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove gnome-keysign
Remove gnome-keysign Configurations and Data
To remove gnome-keysign configuration and data from Ubuntu 18.04 we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y purge gnome-keysign
Remove gnome-keysign configuration, data, and all of its dependencies
We can use the following command to remove gnome-keysign configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge gnome-keysign
References
Summary
In this tutorial we learn how to install gnome-keysign package on Ubuntu 18.04 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.
