sq pki authenticate - Authenticate a binding
sq pki authenticate [OPTIONS]
Authenticate a binding.
Authenticate a binding (a certificate and User ID) by looking for
a path from the trust roots to the specified binding in the Web of Trust.
Because certifications may express uncertainty (i.e., certifications may be
marked as conveying only partial or marginal trust), multiple paths may be
needed.
An error is return if no binding could be authenticated to the
specified level (by default: fully authenticated, i.e., a trust amount of
120).
If any valid paths to the binding are found, they are printed on
stdout whether they are sufficient to authenticate the binding or not.
- --amount=AMOUNT
- The required amount of trust.
- 120 indicates full authentication; values less than 120 indicate partial
authentication. When `--certification-network` is passed, this defaults to
1200, i.e., `sq pki` tries to find 10 paths.
- --cert=FINGERPRINT|KEYID
- Use certificates with the specified fingerprint or key ID
- --certification-network
- Treats the network as a certification network.
- Normally, `sq pki` treats the Web of Trust network as an authentication
network where a certification only means that the binding is correct, not
that the target should be treated as a trusted introducer. In a
certification network, the targets of certifications are treated as
trusted introducers with infinite depth, and any regular expressions are
ignored. Note: The trust amount remains unchanged. This is how most
so-called PGP path-finding algorithms work.
- --email=EMAIL
- Use a user ID with the specified email address.
- This first searches for a matching self-signed user ID. If there is no
self-signed user ID with the specified email, it uses a new user ID with
the specified email address, and no display name.
- --gossip
- Treats all certificates as unreliable trust roots.
- This option is useful for figuring out what others think about a
certificate (i.e., gossip or hearsay). In other words, this finds
arbitrary paths to a particular certificate.
- Gossip is useful in helping to identify alternative ways to authenticate a
certificate. For instance, imagine Ed wants to authenticate Laura's
certificate, but asking her directly is inconvenient. Ed discovers that
Micah has certified Laura's certificate, but Ed hasn't yet authenticated
Micah's certificate. If Ed is willing to rely on Micah as a trusted
introducer, and authenticating Micah's certificate is easier than
authenticating Laura's certificate, then Ed has learned about an easier
way to authenticate Laura's certificate.
- --show-paths
- Show why a binding is authenticated.
- By default, only a user ID and certificate binding's degree of
authentication (a value between 0 and 120) is shown. This changes the
output to also show how that value was computed by showing the paths from
the trust roots to the bindings.
- --userid=USERID
- Use the specified user ID.
- The specified user ID does not need to be self signed.
See sq(1) for a description of the global options.
Authenticate a specific binding.
sq pki authenticate --cert \
EB28F26E2739A4870ECC47726F0073F60FD0CBF0 --userid \
"Alice <alice@example.org>"
Check whether we can authenticate any user ID with the specified
email address for the given certificate.
sq pki authenticate --cert \
EB28F26E2739A4870ECC47726F0073F60FD0CBF0 --email \
sq(1), sq-pki(1).
For the full documentation see
<https://book.sequoia-pgp.org>.
0.40.0 (sequoia-openpgp 1.21.2)