Retrieving public keys

[pwabrahams]

After the latest updates I got a message from Synaptic to the effect that I was missing a public key. My research yielded the following remedy:

gpg --keyserver pgpkeys.mit.edu --recv-key  A8AA1FAA3F055C03

But when I tried it, I got this:

gpg: requesting key 3F055C03 from hkp server pgpkeys.mit.edu
gpgkeys: HTTP fetch error 6: Couldn't resolve host 'pgpkeys.mit.edu'
gpg: no valid OpenPGP data found.
gpg: Total number processed: 0

(Same result with pgpkeys.ubuntu.org.) I encountered this problem a couple of years ago and found a solution, but I no longer remember what it was. Can anyone help?

The answer to this belongs in some FAQ or other.

[plucky]

After the latest updates I got a message from Synaptic to the effect that I was missing a public key. My research yielded the following remedy:

gpg --keyserver pgpkeys.mit.edu --recv-key  A8AA1FAA3F055C03

But when I tried it, I got this:

gpg: requesting key 3F055C03 from hkp server pgpkeys.mit.edu
gpgkeys: HTTP fetch error 6: Couldn't resolve host 'pgpkeys.mit.edu'
gpg: no valid OpenPGP data found.
gpg: Total number processed: 0

(Same result with pgpkeys.ubuntu.org.) I encountered this problem a couple of years ago and found a solution, but I no longer remember what it was. Can anyone help?

The answer to this belongs in some FAQ or other.

Try a different keyserver.

This works for me

gpg --keyserver hkp://subkeys.pgp.net --recv-keys A8AA1FAA3F055C03

I tried your line from a terminal and it just sat there waiting to get the information,so I aborted it.
The above line worked right away.

Good Luck

[pwabrahams]

I tried this from a different computer, with these results:

root@pwa-K60IJ:/home/pwa# gpg --keyserver hkp://subkeys.pgp.net --recv-keys A8AA1FAA3F055C03
gpg: requesting key 3F055C03 from hkp server subkeys.pgp.net
?: subkeys.pgp.net: Host not found
gpgkeys: HTTP fetch error 7: couldn't connect: Success
gpg: no valid OpenPGP data found.
gpg: Total number processed: 0
root@pwa-K60IJ:/home/pwa# gpg --keyserver pgpkeys.mit.edu --recv-key  A8AA1FAA3F055C03
gpg: requesting key 3F055C03 from hkp server pgpkeys.mit.edu
?: pgpkeys.mit.edu: Host not found
gpgkeys: HTTP fetch error 7: couldn't connect: Success
gpg: no valid OpenPGP data found.
gpg: Total number processed: 0

I've concluded that the choice of server isn't the problem.

From what I remember, the 'Host not found" message is bogus. The problem is that the host isn't seeing what it's expecting. But knowing that doesn't solve the problem.

[pwabrahams]

I finally bypassed the problems with retrieving the key via gpg and went to the keyserver.mit.edu website (any other keyserver website will work). I inputted the key, preceding it with 0x. I then was able to link to a keyblock. I copied the entire keyblock, including the heading and trailing lines, to a file I called launchpad. I then typed this on a superuser command line:

apt-key add launchpad

The key finally got recognized.

Part of the problem with the gpg communication, it seems, is that it works not with the standard port 80 but with a special port 11371. This port needs to be open. I opened it with

ufw allow 11371

but that didn't solve the problem.

What strikes me is that only a minority of users have this problem. For most, the usual line

gpg --keyserver pgpkeys.mit.edu --recv-key  A8AA1FAA3F055C03

works correctly. Whatever the solution, it should account for this fact.