Re: Commit signing and pinentry problems

From: brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
Date: Nov 21, 2019, 00:48 UTC
Message-ID: <20191121004831.GB6430@camp.crustytoothpaste.net>
In-Reply-To: <CAH8yC8n+ta4BSAE4rEfhKxe3T9poVdc94HvSk=6PEA4YbmwVyA@mail.gmail.com>

On 2019-11-20 at 12:41:23, Jeffrey Walton wrote:

Show 22 quoted lines

> Hi Everyone,
> 
> I'm having an annoying problem that I can't figure out. I hope Git has
> a setting to fix it.
> 
> I have a desktop workstation where I sit at the keyboard about 1/3 of
> the time. Git signing works as expected. About 2/3 of the time I SSH
> into the machine. Git signing does not work when SSH'd in.
> 
> When Git signing fails over SSH an error looks like:
> 
>    $ git commit -S log.h -m "Remove unneeded header"
>    error: gpg failed to sign the data
>    fatal: failed to write commit object
> 
> I just noticed this today (but it makes sense)...
> 
>     - Go to desktop workstation, log in
>     - Go to remote machine, log in
>     - Sign at remote machine over SSH
>       - Desktop workstation will open GUI password prompt
>       - Remote machine sign operation will hang until GUI prompt times-out

This isn't really a Git problem, so much as a GnuPG one. You probably want to use the curses pinentry input instead of the GUI one. If you're using Ubuntu, you can set "pinentry-program /usr/bin/pinentry-curses" in ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf, kill all of the gpg-agent processes, and then attempt to sign again.

You may also need to set GPG_TTY and/or kill the gpg-agent process when logging in remotely. See gpg-agent(1) for details on configuration and use.

-- 
brian m. carlson: Houston, Texas, US
OpenPGP: https://keybase.io/bk2204