help digital signing

[Tony Arnold]

Brendon,

On Fri, 2006-08-18 at 20:09 +1200, brendon wrote:
> Tony Arnold wrote:
> > Brendon,
> >
> > On Fri, 2006-08-18 at 19:29 +1200, brendon wrote:
> >   
> >> hi there all i am trying to digital  sign a code of conduct,  but when i 
> >> do it under X using seahorse right click then sign none of my signitures 
> >> come up,  then when i do it  in a terminal   all i get is a error  along 
> >> the lines of syntax any help please.
> >>
> >> this is what i am doing
> >> gpg --sign code of conduct
> >>     
> >
> > Could you post the exact command and error messages? It would help us
> > track down your problem.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Tony.
> >   
> 
> the  error i  get  is
> gpg: no default secret key: secret key not available
> gpg: signing failed: secret key not available
> 
> but  when  i  list my keys  they are list  and are there

gpg --list-secret-keys

will produce a list of your secret keys and their IDs. That will confirm
you have a secret key, which is needed for signing.

If there is more than one, then you could either explicitly choose a
secret key for signing in the --sign command, for example:

	gpg --sign myfile.doc --local-user keyid

where 'keyid' is the ID of the key you want to sign with.

Regards,
Tony.
-- 
Tony Arnold, IT Security Coordinator, University of Manchester,
IT Services Division, Kilburn Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL.
T: +44 (0)161 275 6093, F: +44 (0)870 136 1004, M: +44 (0)773 330 0039
E: tony.arnold at manchester.ac.uk, H: http://www.man.ac.uk/Tony.Arnold